[NEWS] Microsoft Says Other OSes Should Imitate UAC

MrGuvernment

Fully [H]
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Aug 3, 2004
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for some reason, i dont think so, and dont think many would agree......

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| Microsoft Says Other OSes Should Imitate UAC |
| from the bring-'em-down-to-our-level dept. |
| posted by kdawson on Tuesday May 01, @13:28 (Security) |
| http://it.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/05/01/1643240 |
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COA writes "Many Vista adopters find User Account Control irritating, but Microsoft [0]thinks it's an approach other OSes should emulate. Microsoft Australia's Chief Security Adviser Peter Watson calls UAC a great idea and 'strategically a direction that all operating systems and all technologies should be heading down.' He also believes Microsoft is charting new territory with UAC. 'The most controversial aspect of Watson's comments all center around the idea that Microsoft is a leader with UAC, and that other OSes should follow suit. UAC is a cousin of myriad "superuser" process elevation strategies, of which Mac OS X and all flavors of Linux already enjoy. The fact is that Microsoft is late to the party with their Microsoftized version of sudo. That's really what UAC is, after all: sudo with a fancy display mechanism (to make it hard to spoof) and extra monitoring to pick up on "suspicious" behavior.'"

Discuss this story at:
http://it.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=07/05/01/1643240

Links:
0. http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/pos...is-so-good-other-oses-should-follow-suit.html
 
They already have it and have for a long time. other way around Microsoft. You finally caught up to others. Sudo is quite old as I recall.
 
sigh...they're wrong obviously.

and i can see this turning into nothing but a flame war so i'm done after this post :p
 
This'n is silly, sensationalist reporting that's being repeated all over the place for the sake of scandal.

Simple fact is that the man, during the course of a conference involving Windows platform software developers, was questioned about UAC and the difficulties involved in programming around it (i.e. by lazy software developers) and responded to those comments with a comment of his own suggesting that it (software operating in user space) is a feature all operating systems should be using.

I'm doubtful about whether or not Watson actually suggested that Microsoft is a 'leader' in this direction at all. Earliest reports I read about this seemed to imply that his comments meant such a thing, but the more it gets reported the more the reports seem to suggest that he explicitly said it and that it is some sort of official utterance on the matter from Microsoft.

Lot of hot air about nothing. Saying that the 'superuser' concept is something all OS's should use is nothing new.
 
I agree with Catweazle in that this was posted and taken out of context. I really don't think someone from Microsoft would actually issue a statement stating that knowing about Linux / MacOS having something similar already.

Now on the other hand, I think the patent that eeyrjmr linked is going a little too far. I know Microsoft has to protect its intellectual property, but UAC is not something that is just a Microsoft thing. BUT, I don't know that legal mumbo jumbo (and I am not going to read through that whole patent) so I don't know if it is the whole UAC technology or just parts of it.
 
Ditto- taken out of context and this will serve no purpose other than a flame-war.

I wish I could say "Buried as Inaccurate".
 
Correct. MacOS X has done this for years. I'm not a linux person, but I believe Linux does it as well.

Biggest difference is they do it right.

Nice try Microsoft :)



They already have it and have for a long time. other way around Microsoft. You finally caught up to others. Sudo is quite old as I recall.
 
(software operating in user space)
Unrelated to the topic of the thread, but I see statements like this made a lot and thought I'd clear something up: All software runs in user space. Only the kernel and drivers run in kernel space.
 
sigh, now Mr. Balmer is gonna give another keynote and say linux is infringing on its patents...... *sigh* ...... its like the mpaa claiming a string of hex numbers is there intellectual property.
 
Unrelated to the topic of the thread, but I see statements like this made a lot and thought I'd clear something up: All software runs in user space. Only the kernel and drivers run in kernel space.
heh heh...

I'm about as far from 'software engineer' or 'programmer' as anybody could be, and try to avoid the fields as far as possible, so forgive me for not talking the talk when I stray into such areas.

I'm sure that the intent and general understanding was there, though, even if the technical description and terminology wasn't. A more accurate and technically correct explanation of "shit that's sticking its nose into where it shouldn't be" would be appreciated, if anybody cares to offer one :D
 
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