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Microsoft Designed UAC to Annoy Users

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the at-least-they-are-being-honest dept.

I Don't Believe in Imaginary Property writes "At the 2008 RSA security conference, Microsoft's David Cross was quoted as saying, 'The reason we put UAC into the platform was 'to annoy users. I'm serious.' The logic behind this statement is that it should encourage application vendors to eliminate as many unnecessary privilege escalations as possible by causing users to complain about all the UAC 'Cancel or Allow' prompts. Of course, they probably didn't expect that Microsoft would instead get most of the complaints for training users to ignore meaningless security warnings."

9 of 571 comments (clear)

  1. oblig. by cvd6262 · · Score: 4, Funny

    It appears you are trying to make a snide comment.
    [Cancel] [Allow]

    --

    I'd rather have someone respond than be modded up.

  2. At last - an MS Success! by fatmal · · Score: 5, Funny

    It Worked!

  3. Frustration Detection patent by OMNIpotusCOM · · Score: 4, Funny

    It does make sense, when you think about it, since they've found step 2 and patented a frustration detection system.

    I have to steal this comment from one of the posts from that story, but...

    Step 1: Make frustration and annoying software
    Step 2: Patent frustration detection system
    Step 3: Profit.

  4. Just a typo.... by Naughty+Bob · · Score: 4, Funny

    If this is true.... I think it's just that the story submitter accidentally included the letters UAC in the headline.
    --
    "Be light, stinging, insolent and melancholy"
  5. Re:Of course... by tepples · · Score: 5, Funny

    If they'd done this from the start, no one would be complaining. In the era of Windows 95, home PCs weren't considered to have enough CPU and RAM to enforce proper privilege separation.
  6. Let me fix this for you... by actionbastard · · Score: 5, Funny

    Microsoft Designed UAC to Annoy Slashdot Users.

    There. All better.

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    Sig this!
  7. Well..... by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Funny

    Aha! They annoyed me so much that I actually switched to linux. /success

  8. Re:you, my friend, made an incorrect assumption... by plover · · Score: 5, Funny

    Because it's much easier to sit on Slashdot and make up bullshit and lies about Microsoft because it's trendy to hate them. Oh, it's not trendy. We've always hated them.
    --
    John
  9. Re:And Microsoft was the biggest offender. by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Funny
    "It's much easier to implement the UNIX security model on Windows than the other way around."

    Why in hell would anyone want to implement Windows "security" on Unix?