Thursday, September 23, 2004

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > State of the Art: Making Windows More Secure

The New York Times > Technology > Circuits > State of the Art: Making Windows More Secure "In the big picture, though, there's a much more depressing problem: Service Pack 2 hands over a big victory to the software terrorists. They've made Windows a lot less convenient, a lot more complex and even naggier than before. Nonprofessionals are now supposed to know the answer when some unfamiliar component asks for permission to open a firewall port, whether it's safe to open a quarantined e-mail attachment or if it's O.K. for your banking Web site to install some browser add-on. You can beef up security, but only at the expense of convenience, simplicity and comfort.
And it's a war that won't end, either. "We know that as soon as we close a bunch of doors, the bad guys will go back to the drawing board," a Windows product manager says. "They're clever, and this cat-and-mouse will continue forever. We're in this game for the long haul. We'll never say, 'Mission accomplished.' "
In that regard, Service Pack 2 is only one more sign of the times."

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