Posted by Vince on 10/14/2009, 4:42 pm, in reply to "Re: Snow Leopard bug"
68.144.14.16
may have something to do with overall internet security. It's misguided thinking, perhaps but the sentiment is kind of right.
If a person doesn't run as root, he can't change the system. Nothing is written to the registry and nothing can get installed.
The general concern is NOT for the individual user but rather, for the good of the whole internet, with providers of OS's being part of that network.
What's happening is that clueless users are letting stuff be installed to their computers which are then controlled remotely by "bot herders." (The majority of spam we get, for example, comes from infected computers and not from source IP's .... which makes eradication nearly impossible). Zombie computers all over the world are also used -by remote control- to launch massive attacks against targets like Microsoft.
So-o ........ what's the answer? Remove control from dumb users by making them unable to run their machines in root mode.
People like you and Dave and I are NOT the problem because we're aware of what we do and quickly fix problems when they arise ... but .... so MANY people don't have a clue about if or when their machines have been compromised.
Now Vista, as you know, DID make it impossible to install anything without temporarily jumping into a kind of root mode ...... but ...... it was SUCH an annoyance, the dumb ones were simply saying yes to everything anyway. (I witnessed it with my own eyes; this woman said to me, "Vince, this doesn't work! I can't open this." And then, right in front of my eyes -while I'm telling her to WAIT ........ she clicks OK to the Vista popup, giving her root power .......... and installed a trojan right there on the spot!)
Personally, I still run XP and I have ALL of my browsers set to run in non-administration mode. There's a little "toy" program available from Microsoft to enable one to do this. So-o ..... I STILL run my machine in administration mode but my browsers are restricted to user mode only. That's pretty "nice" because it prevents me from accidentally letting the browser install something malicious. Since most crap comes in that way, I have a very effective little firewall against that happening. For the most part, I never notice any difference in overall browsing freedom.
-Vince
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