General Discussions

**ibbo** · 06-23-2006, 10:04 AM

http://www.betanews.com/article/Mic...Ever/1150366131

A claim I have no doubt will be retracted once its up and away.

My point been is : Would you cliaim as much for one of your products or do you know better than to tempt fate early by making such claims.

Nothing like self propoganda to get the masses curious is there.

Ibbo

**techwench** · 06-23-2006, 11:01 AM

The correct link is: http://www.betanews.com/article/1150366131

And nowhere in that article does it say that it's 100% secure, infact, they admit that it isn't 100% secure:

Quote:

Originally Posted by BetaNews

But Microsoft acknowledges that nothing is infallible when it comes to computer security. In turn, the company has employed black hat hackers for what is called a penetration, or pen, test team. This group has only one duty: to break the security in Windows Vista and help the company develop fixes for the vulnerabilities.

**Harvey** · 02:07 PM

Quote:

the company has employed black hat hackers for what is called a penetration, or pen, test team

That makes them white hat hackers

!

**techwench** · 06-23-2006, 02:54 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Harvey

That makes them white hat hackers

!

Haha. As long as they're not Red Hat hackers...then they'd be facing a lawsuit.

**z4z3** · 06-23-2006, 09:30 PM

100% secure OS ? I think only God can make it

**chadtikker** · 06-27-2006, 01:49 PM

I've personally used FreeBSD. Very secure

http://www.freebsd.org

**ibbo** · 06-28-2006, 08:43 AM

"And nowhere in that article does it say that it's 100% secure, infact, they admit that it isn't 100% secure:"

Thread title techwench

So OK 100% is not in the article but this is
"proclaiming that Windows Vista was the most secure operating system in the industry"

Am I dreaming or what.

My point stands, A secure OS is one that never gets powered up and if MS track record is anything at all to go by then I have to say that this is some marketing strategy.

Ibbo

**stOx** · 06-28-2006, 09:22 AM

The new features probably do make it the most secure operating system, For now.
But all they are doing is making sure that known threats and common threats are stopped.. They can't predict what the future will bring.

So for the first 4 months after release it probably will be the most secure OS, But then it will turn into what all windows machines turn into, A ticking time bomb of doom.

Windows main flaw is letting people log in as admin when they don't need to, which means anything run as that "user" has full access to all system files and regestry. From the sounds of it MS have learned what UNIX knew 20 years ago... Don''t give people admin accounts, Give them user accounts with restricted permissions, Then if you need to do something as root, login as root.

**techwench** · 06-28-2006, 09:27 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by stOx

Windows main flaw is letting people log in as admin when they don't need to, which means anything run as that "user" has full access to all system files and regestry [...]

Ding, ding, ding!

It's not only MS/Windows, though. It's the majority of the userbase (I'm not talking about the tech-savvy, I'm talking about joe-schmoe user). People just want to be able to click on something, and have it happen. They don't care what happens in the background, they don't care about what happens until it inconveniences them.

**stOx** · 06-28-2006, 09:48 AM

They would definately have to package it in a way that wouldn't make joe-schmoe have a nervous breakdown at the thought of having to learn something new.

Instead of calling it an "admin account" call it a "system login", Then after the system login has been created prompt the user to create thier user account.

I don't know how many times on average a windows box needs to make changes to system files or important regestry entries. But on linux when i try to run something that needs root permissions i get prompted to enter my root pass, then it just does it.
The same concept on windows would improve thier security 100 fold.

People have had a charmed life with windows, But this charmed life and automation that windows provides has come at the cost of security,, And i fear we have reached the point of no return with it now.

**OTO** · 06-28-2006, 09:54 AM

There is no and never will be 100% secured OS

Nothing impossible...

**ibbo** · 06-29-2006, 11:49 AM

"They don't care what happens in the background, they don't care about what happens until it inconveniences them."

This then should surely be a consideration when wrinting a user based operating system. Instead we see spyware and other things accumalating on machines whose users have no knowledge of how thats happened.

Like you say they click till it freezes and then what?

It should be addressed in design not bodged during development.

Ibbo

**Minaki** · 06-30-2006, 05:46 AM

Users are inherantly dumb.

The thing is, there's a bit of a tradeoff - for applications to work properly without the user having to intervene, the OS has to be somewhat open. The only way for an OS to be 100% secure would be to ask the user about every single change that's about to be made to make sure that's what they want. Obviously, this is totally impractical. The issue here is not so much OS security, it's more User Education. If users know the consequenses of their actions, then they will be far better protected against malware. Together with routine maintenance, there should be no reason for the machine to be at all insecure.

**albert_chu** · 07-04-2006, 04:47 AM

there is no such thing as a 100% secure OS..