If you are a Windows 9x or Me user, I guess you are wondering what this article is all about. If you moved to Windows XP, you start guessing what it might be. But I guess when you had the opportunity during the Windows user creation to select “Limited Account” or “Administrative Account”, you have selected the latest. Not only the name “Limited Account” sounds pejorative, but you will not able to use a lot of your application then because of insufficient privilege (it is getting better, and if you have the luck to have the latest version of all your software, it might work), so you are using your Windows with administrative privilege.
This is not only a bad idea because if during your normal desktop use, you or one of your program fiddles with an important file, you might get your system to an unstable state. It can become tremendously bad when you get infected, as your whole system is then compromised (no need to find a privilege escalation security breach somewhere)
The Linux/UNIX users are surely all laughing at this. Because, they all know that you should have a root account for any administrative tasks, and a user account (see it is not a limited account in this philosophy) for all desktop use. However, there are two doctrines: the root or sudo doctrines.
Continue reading “Administrator privilege phylosophy (sudo vs. root)”
I wish I had a Mac!