Black Hat with a Vista twist

[dbarrow]

http://news.zdnet.com/2100-1009_22-6100607.html

The annual security conference traditionally focuses on hunting for bugs and attacking computer systems. At the 2006 event this week, however, an entire track will be devoted to the security--rather than the insecurity--of Windows Vista and Internet Explorer 7. The series of sessions will be hosted by Microsoft, a major sponsor of the event this year. ...

...It's a sign of development at the event, which brings together the hacker and corporate worlds for two days of talks in Las Vegas. The tenth Black Hat promises to be special, Moss said. "It is the largest show ever in terms of size and attendees," he said. Moss sold rights to the conference to technology publisher CMP Media in November, but he still runs the event. ...

*This is the BIG test for Vista where MS usually gets handed their lunch! No doubt Gates has been waiting on this event before making a firm prediction on release dates.

[Tortanick]

"Vista is the most secure OS ever"

I have an idea: get a secure linux distro, get vista, install on identical hardware, enable automatic updates plug them into the net and when Vista gets a virus sue M$ for false advertiseing.

[Pi rules]

That would be an interesting event to see.

Tortanick, don't some of the "new" security features in Vista resemble what Linux and Unix-based systems have been doing for years? Except Linux is smarter about it and doesn't require root/super user (like administrator) privilages to delete a shortcut.

[Tortanick]

They do resemble *nix, and I'm glad to see that MS is learning from our years of sucess. However since MS can't "break backwards compatibility" I serosly doubt that its going to do it properly. Besides elivated user permissions isn't the reason win XP gets infected without user aid.

Note, on *nix systems depending on the short cut often will require root/super user permissions to delete it, if its outside your home directories to be precise.

I can't say how ergonomic Vista's implementation is but I imagine these are key diffrenecs:

* In *nix systems you hardly ever leave your home directories, the idea of navagating to program files to open a program is a windows one. We just use the start menu eqivilent (and its well organised)

* In *nix systems if you want to run as root you don't have to log in with elivated privilages, you can open a window where everything you double click runs as root but apart from that you're still a normal user, sudo nautilus, sudo konqueror or whatever file browser you use. (sudo bash for a terminal)

* Our programs don't need write access to anything outside your home directory unless they have a good reason to.