Re: I'd like to have an unreadable file

[Corinna Vinschen <corinna-cygwin at cygwin dot com>]

On Apr 30 22:19, Eric Blake wrote:
> Tim McDaniel <tmcd <at> panix.com> writes:
> > Thank you for the quick reply.  (Though I find it scary that Cygwin
> > can escalate privileges so very much.)
> 
> Cygwin is not escalating privileges.  Rather, what is scary is that
> Windows provides that many privilges to administrators in the first
> place (in the case of reading a file with no explicit read
> permissions, it is the read-with-intent- to-backup privilege that lets
> you in).  It's just that most Windows apps don't exploit those
> privileges as readily as cygwin.  Now think of how many users run with
> administrator privileges by default (much higher than the number of
> people who run Unix with root priviliges by default).  No wonder virus
> writes like Windows.

I'm not scared by the fact that Administrators have this rights.  After
all, the root user on Linux has all these rights as well and there has
to be an account with these rights.  The underlying problem is that with
Windows XP Microsoft missed to move the users to the more secure model
of running as unprivileged user all the time(*), and only use the "run
as admin" facility if it's really necessary.

That's why UAC has been added to Vista.  It's trying to add the
additional security which has been accidentally dropped in XP.  UAC was
IMHO not the right way to do it, since it's reverting to a more secure
user model by adding a lot of fragile complexity to the system, which
will constantly puzzle users, but at least the security is better now.


Corinna


(*) So as not to alienate former Windows 95/98/Me users.

> > I guess the workaround would be to simply test the script by running
> > as a user who is not in the Administrators group.
> 
> Yes - if you want to avoid superuser privileges, then don't log in as a 
> superuser.

Good idea :)


Corinna

-- 
Corinna Vinschen                  Please, send mails regarding Cygwin to
Cygwin Project Co-Leader          cygwin AT cygwin DOT com
Red Hat

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