On Wed, 2004-08-18 at 11:38, joe wrote: > I think you meant your first line to be > > "All OS vendors should bite the bullet and re-write their code with security > in mind." > > Not sure why you singled MS out for that statement. Especially considering > the rest of the post. Probably to bait you, and you've bitten :) Earlier versions of NT (3.51-4.0) had security in mind (perhaps a heritage from the VMS days...dunno). The web server (up to and including IIS 3.0) ran under a user account (configured in the services list). So did the FTP account. It was even possible to run the Scheduler Service under a dedicated user account. Being able to run processes under dedicated user accounts allowed the administrators to keep these services confined in terms of access to Registry keys and the file system. Unfortunately, during the course of moving to 2000, all these features disappeared. The "greed for speed" lumped all services into the System context. Pretty sad. I loved NT 4.0. I thought it was great. I had services locked down so tight, even file system-wise these boxes were pruned (no explorer, just cmd as the shell). Oh well, now I'm using a different OS and am much happier with it. The biggest boon to security would be to start simplifying Windows. Not from a end-user perspective (as in how easy it is to use it), but from an architectural perspective. That's where systems like *BSD shine, a simpler (and thus more secure and faster) architecture. Another thing that would improve Windows security greatly (besides a *real* host-based firewall) would be something like the Execute bit in the *nix file permissions. Seems like Microsoft is trying this through use of a list of approved/signed applications. That may or may not work (not counting downsides of administrative overhead). We should keep a close eye on the success of that. Perhaps a simple Execute-Bit, that can only be set after entering a password (to foil attempts by hostile code to set it on behalf of the user), might have been a better solution. Again, a simple solution with far-reaching effects. But since Joe No-pun-intended Shmoe at home doesn't want security, it will never happen. Oh well... Regards, Frank
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