Lock It Up

On Friday, I showed you how to do something that even Microsoft itself has not accomplished with Windows XP — run admin only applications with the limited user’s password, all within the limited user itself and without resorting to the dangerous “RunAs” function. The obvious benefits from a safe computing aspect are staggering. Being able to only have things install when the user grants their limited user password, but unable to uninstall other apps installed previously by the administrator, is very useful for most family computers. Personally, I believe this gives Windows XP a huge edge. Try this exercise — with WinSUDO installed, create a shortcut to explorer.exe. Sudo into it and try to add something to your windows directory — you can’t. That is not too shabby, let me tell you. Moving on…

And as I had stated latest week, today I will show those of you who want to continue running as admins, how to make your various applications on Windows a whole lot safer. It all starts here. As you can see from the code on the previous page, this simple application allows administrators to operate individual applications with a lot more safety in mind. How? By simply dropping the privileges of the specific application you have in mind.

Keep in mind that their are glossier ways of doing this sort of thing, like DefenseWALL HIPS. But I like to get down and geeky with apps. That, and I don’t like to run extra software in the background if I can avoid it — on any platform.

In either instance, running your Web browser and email client using either of the above tools is going to translate into a much safer computing experience. And to be honest, this secure mindset needs to go for Vista, OS X, and yes kids, even Linux as well. I can easily whip up a fast little bash script for Linux newbies and wipe your systems clean (or in some cases, just your personal data). So all platforms should be used with care.

Remember, no OS over another is idiotproof. But with the tools I have provided over the past couple of days, I hope this gives each of you a stronger place to start from in your quest for a more secure desktop.