Tim Marman's Loosely Coupled

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• The UAC security flaw in Vista

  User Account Control (UAC) is one of the key security mechanisms introduced in Vista. In the past, the default account as an administrator. Following the principle of least privilege , the default Vista account runs with limited access, and Vista detects when something requires "administrator prompts", as mocked in the most recent Mac ad. All told, this is a good thing. Unfortunately, Microsoft made some poor design decisions in the implementation, sacrificing some of the security for ease of use. Joanna Rutkowska summarizes the issue : One thing that I found particularly annoying though, is that Vista automatically assumes that all setup programs (application installers) should be run with administrator privileges. So, when you try to run such a program, you get a UAC prompt and you have only two choices: either to agree to run this application as administrator or to disallow running it at all. That means that if you downloaded some freeware Tetris game, you will have to run its installer... Posted Mar 03 2007, 03:57 AM by Tim with | with 2 comment(s) Filed under: Security, Microsoft, YouTube, Video, Apple, Advertising

• Another ironic Mac commercial

  We already know some of the ads in the Get-A-Mac campaign don't exactly make sense . The latest, "Counselor", seems particularly ironic to me. In the ad, the Mac says that the PC "is a wizard with numbers and dresses like a gentleman". The PC is able to say that the Mac is "better with creative stuff", but quickly qualifies such behavior as "completely juvenile and a waste of time". Wait... I thought Apple was the one running the slander campaign? Speaking of which, Apple and Microsoft really do need some counseling. Some of the 5.5G iPods were released with a virus , which Apple blamed on Microsoft because of its insecure OS. Microsoft, of course, said it was simply Apple's lackluster quality control . Let me just come out and say it - Apple wouldn't stoop to releasing a device that intentionally included a Windows-only security exploit to "prove a point", would they? I mean, sure, they'll have some lawsuits, but pretty effective marketing move... Posted Oct 19 2006, 02:33 PM by Tim with | with no comments Filed under: Rants, Security, Gadgets, Web 2.0, Marketing, YouTube, Apple, Advertising