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by James Robertson.
Original Post: Increased security, or just a pain?
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ComputerWorld's Robert Mitchell talks about the security enhancements in XP SP2. It seems like they are at least moving in the right direction - the firewall will default to on, for instance. However, some of the security features just seem like hurdles. Take this:
To get an idea of just how far Microsoft's thinking has come, consider how SP2 handles .zip files. These can contain viruses that antivirus programs can't detect, so SP2 blocks all such attachments. To open a .zip file, the user must first save it to disk, then select it, bring up the Properties dialog box and click on an option to unlock the file. That makes handling of .zip files pretty inconvenient but safer.
How is that actually safer? As you unzip the file, either you have virus scanners that will catch bad things or you don't. Making it a pain in the butt to grab compressed files doesn't actually help. This reminds me of nothing so much as the Transporation (In)Security Agency's insistence that you take your PC out of its bag before it gets X-Rayed. News Flash - X-rays see through the bag. I'm so pleased to see that MS has gone for "in your face" perceived security, rather than the real thing.
Here's what they could do if they really wanted to improve things - make it possible to use Windows as a normal user rather than as a user with admin rights. I rarely use the root account on my Linux box - on Windows, I can't do much of anything unless I have admin rights. Since there's been zero reporting on that issue, I guess it's not going to be addressed soon...
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