Nathan Davis11 October 2006, 1:48 AM
The final version of Vista is soon to be upon us, however it is completely, utterly fundamentally flawed in the way it handles security. It involves zombies.
With Windows XP service pack 1 having now gone gold (thank you, I'll be here all week), Microsoft is ramping up focus on its new glass-flavoured-jellybean operating system.
There is a significant problem with Vista, however. More specifically, one of its features will spawn a whole new generation of what I call zombie clickers.
No, I'm not smoking anything.
When was the last time you fully read a dialogue box asking if you're sure you want to, say, delete a file? Or a license agreement when installing a new piece of software?
You don't. Hardly anyone does. You know what you're trying to do, so you automatically hit 'yes'. Your brain has programmed itself to do this, because you rarely, if ever, hit 'no'.
This is what I call the zombie click. This form of autopilot serves to rid you, the user, of the pestering dialogue box that is inhibiting you from achieving your goal.
Currently in Vista, when you proceed to run certain programs, and many at that, a dialogue box pops up asking if you want to run it. You know, the thing you just double-clicked on in order to run.
If you're not logged-on as an administrator, it will also ask for an administrator password. This is only going to encourage users to log in as such because you can't otherwise do much.
This irritant is called User Account Control (UAC) and is, according to Microsoft, a security feature. 'Tedious, green turd' is more appropriate.
When you double-click on a program, the last thing you want to do is actually run it, right? You were just playing games. Yes, that's it.
Sarcasm aside, I'm not talking a load of FUD here. UAC serves no purpose, whatsoever, other than to be annoying and delay the inevitable.
People will not read into why the dialogue box is there and will simply dismiss it. This is real and, as I mentioned, it happens today.
It's a human condition. Our brains are easily desensitised to repeated information. When it does concern us, however, we are not likely to notice.
Thus, the entire concept of UAC is broken -- it won't stop anything. UAC only serves to wrongly piss off its human users and spawn more zombie clickers.
UAC can't hope to protect users from their own stupid mistakes. [Editor: It's like the 'user friendly' firewalls that pop up advising that 'sysupdate.exe wants to access 144.47.156.32 on port 45734, deny or allow?' Most users have no idea what it means, so they click allow, because they don't want to block something that might be important to their computer's functioning... and after some months of this, they are left with a 'swiss-cheese' firewall.]
When the situation arises and a virus is set loose into the great Vista wild, the users will be none the wiser and UAC will have helped no one. They will click on through, password or otherwise. That's why the antivirus, the software that identifies malicious software, is there.
Allow me to demonstrate UAC's severe inadequacy:
An email arrives from what appears to be an old friend.
"Hi buddy, it's been a while," it reads. "I thought you might find this attachment interesting! Regards, Mat."
Who's Mat? Maybe it's my old pal Matthew from high school. Or was that college?
Well, what's this he sent me... click
Vista presents a dialogue box:
Are you sure you want to-click
And another:
This program wants t-click
I rest my case.
Hey, Microsoft -- 1984 called. It wants its bureaucracy back.
