I'm not suggesting we move or remove the blame; I'm suggesting that the victims of such trivial worms share the blame.
I think a more appropriate analogy would be knowingly not locking your house.:) In my opinion, that's a stupid thing to do--equally as stupid as not employing basic computer security measures on a computer network.
Judging from Mr Tierney's childish comments, I suspect the main reason for his writing this article was to vent his frustration caused by his personal experience with malicious computer programmes. Frankly, I don't think such comments belong on the Web site of The New York Times.
I also don't think the authors of such programmes can be entirely blamed for the damage they cause. I think a share of the blame belongs to the computer administrators and possibly their superiors who are so naive and/or foolish as to not implement effective computer security measures, let alone choosing to use the illusion of an operating system that is Microsoft Windows.
Taking this into consideration, life-long sentences seem unfair. I don't support capital punishment.
If people don't take a stand towards such lazy developers, they will only continue to make single-platform software.
Considering there are plenty of viable solutions for cross-platform development available, I don't think there is any excuse for making single-platform software anymore.
The only possible exceptions would be for applications which require unusually fast processing, and for games.
I think Howard is simply trying to shift the blame for the exceptional lack of security in Windows by default.
To summarise the reasons for developers and users ignoring LAU mode:
Many applications, including some written by Microsoft themselves, don't work in part or whole under LAU mode
The first account created when booting Windows XP for the first time is given administrator privileges
Newly-created accounts are given administrator privileges by default
Users of Windows XP Home Edition can't easily change what users with normal privileges can access because only limited modification of file system privileges via the command line is permitted
There is no mechanism for temporarily granting administrator privileges to a certain application
Microsoft have made little or no effort to educate developers and users about LAU mode
Microsoft Windows is more of a marketing tool than an operating system
While it is possible to use IIS to serve standards-compliant mark-up, I've found that it is usually the case that people who use IIS have little or no regard for users of other web browsers or other operating systems. I think this is mainly due to the bad examples which Microsoft set.
In the United Kingdom, Microsoft seems to dominate the thoughts of almost everyone who requires any ICT solution, such as a web site. I find this both annoying and worrying.
You can be sure that if you make use of Web sites based in the UK, or provided for citizens of the UK, you will regularly face:
mark-up which only renders correctly for Internet Explorer;
documents which are only available in Word format; and
downloads which only work on Windows.
Furthermore, in the UK, matters related to ICT are very rarely, and usually never covered on televised news. You won't hear about software patents, the dangers of using Internet Explorer or anything related to open source software--nada.
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I'm not suggesting we move or remove the blame; I'm suggesting that the victims of such trivial worms share the blame.
I think a more appropriate analogy would be knowingly not locking your house. :) In my opinion, that's a stupid thing to do--equally as stupid as not employing basic computer security measures on a computer network.
Judging from Mr Tierney's childish comments, I suspect the main reason for his writing this article was to vent his frustration caused by his personal experience with malicious computer programmes. Frankly, I don't think such comments belong on the Web site of The New York Times.
I also don't think the authors of such programmes can be entirely blamed for the damage they cause. I think a share of the blame belongs to the computer administrators and possibly their superiors who are so naive and/or foolish as to not implement effective computer security measures, let alone choosing to use the illusion of an operating system that is Microsoft Windows.
Taking this into consideration, life-long sentences seem unfair. I don't support capital punishment.
If people don't take a stand towards such lazy developers, they will only continue to make single-platform software.
Considering there are plenty of viable solutions for cross-platform development available, I don't think there is any excuse for making single-platform software anymore.
The only possible exceptions would be for applications which require unusually fast processing, and for games.
Doy! I forgot about Run as. Though, sometimes that option is disabled.
It certainly sets a terrible example.
I think Howard is simply trying to shift the blame for the exceptional lack of security in Windows by default.
To summarise the reasons for developers and users ignoring LAU mode:
Wondering about your question, I found Tagish's Directory of UK Government Offices' Web Sites and was shocked to find that the first four Web sites listed were running Microsoft Internet Information Server.
While it is possible to use IIS to serve standards-compliant mark-up, I've found that it is usually the case that people who use IIS have little or no regard for users of other web browsers or other operating systems. I think this is mainly due to the bad examples which Microsoft set.
In the United Kingdom, Microsoft seems to dominate the thoughts of almost everyone who requires any ICT solution, such as a web site. I find this both annoying and worrying.
You can be sure that if you make use of Web sites based in the UK, or provided for citizens of the UK, you will regularly face:
Furthermore, in the UK, matters related to ICT are very rarely, and usually never covered on televised news. You won't hear about software patents, the dangers of using Internet Explorer or anything related to open source software--nada.