In message <
[email protected]> Bill
I have never had that experience and I doubt that any other Linux user
has had it either. Apps just don't pop up and ask for your password.
You have to start them first.
The same is true of Windows -- You start an app that needs
administrative privileges, it will task.
If an app is written to elevate during operation, that's possible too.
As of yet, most apps don't have this capability, so the elevation takes
place at the start.
You have to intentionally decide to do
something in superuser mode.
Sure -- This was already possible in previous versions of XP (and is
possible in Vista too, if you so desire). Vista simplifies things by
elevating automatically, rather then getting half way into an installer
only to find out you need to be elevated, the installer isn't written to
elevate part way through, and you have to start over.
In general, you install programs from
secure archives.
Indeed.
If the superuser request for a password popped up on
its own, you would figure that you were under attack.
The same is generally true in Windows -- A UAC popup on it's own
indicates something unexpected is happening. Unexpected is usually bad.
That has never
happened. This is not Windows. There is no parallel to Windows.
Windows copied some of the features of Linux, but did not copy the
underlying security model.
huh?
The base security model has been there since the beginning of the NT
line and is fairly similar to the unix security model.
The difference is that between backward compatibility to the 9x line,
and continuing support for poorly written apps, it wasn't especially
feasible to running as a limited user most of the time.
This would be similar to any linux environment where the user runs as
root at all times because several user apps that users "can't live
without" only run as root, and "su" is too hard for users.
The core OS, and virtually all of Microsoft's software run just fine as
limited users, and have since the 2000 versions (earlier, probably,
although I ran precious little MS software other then the OS under NT4)
It is still Windows. You can attempt to
hypothesize all day...but you are comparing two Windows models...and not
a Windows and Linux model. Linux does not use a central registry.
How is the registry involved here?
You are aware that the registry's security controls are as granular and
as tight as the file system, right?
Programs have their own hidden dir in the user space. If someone could
compromise your browser, you only have to shut down the program, remove
the dir, and restart the program to restore it to its original
configuration.
That is far from true -- A compromised app running on Linux has access
to more then just it's own configuration files, it will generally have
access to most of the same files you do, unless the app is explicitly
locked down. When I login to my Linux box here, I can easily view or
edit any file in my user directory. I can modify at my fire fox
refs.DJs file from a text editor, for example. Say I found a buffer
overrun in my text editor of choice that would execute arbitrary code,
and I tricked you into opening a text file that triggered the buffer
overrun, and had my arbitrary code add some lines to Fire fox's refs.DJs
file to reload the exploit automatically. What exactly in Linux's
security model prevents this, assuming a buffer overrun or other
compromise in one arbitrary app?
Most trojans/viruses these days only need to run, and to have outbound
port 25 access, no more and no less. They don't care about your data,
they don't care about your system, that's just gravy, all they really
want to do is what economically benefits the author. If there were
enough Linux users out there stupid enough to launch random binaries
from untrusted sources, we'd see far more exploits targeted to that
market.
The percentage of Linux boxes is almost too small to be worth a
spammer's time to pay a coder to write the code, and the percentage of
linux users dumb enough to fall for "This is your ISP, run the attached
file or your internet will be cut off" isn't exactly overwhelming
either, they're simply not Linux users since Linux isn't a choice in
most cases.
The offending attacker is blocked from the system files.
But this is only speculation. It has never happened to me yet.
This is true in Vista, and every Microsoft OS since NT3.51 (or earlier,
that's as far back as my experience with NT goes) -- As long as you run
as a limited user, rather then an administrator, you cannot modify
system binaries, or even installed applications. The only files you can
write to are dedicated to your own use (out of the box)
