Misplaced flamewar... WAS: RE: in case nobody else noticed it, there was a mail worm released today

Thu Jan 29 15:35:46 UTC 2004

> kenw at kmsi.net wrote:
> But, regardless, Win2K and WinXP do have restricted-user
> modes that tie this stuff down quite well.  They tend to
> be used in corporate environments.

Indeed, and the one reason being that the last thing the IT staff wants
is users installing apps, because even if the user is not installing a
worm or Trojan, installing software inevitably generates
incompatibilities and demand for more support.

> But for home users, it gets to be a pain in the butt,
> because it prevents a lot of things users want to do,
> like installing games, multimedia apps and spyware.

Yep. In XP home, it's easy to have several users on the same machine but
by default they all have administrative rights.

> doug at nanog.con.com wrote:
> Microsoft software is inherently less safe than
> Linux/*BSD software.
> This is because Microsoft has favored usability
> over security.
> This is because the market has responded better
> to that tradeoff.
> This is because your mom doesn't want to have to
> hire a technical consultant to manage her IT
> infrastructure when all she wants to do is get
> email pictures of her grandkids.

Exactly.

Michel.