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I have no idea what security feature in Vista this Apple ad is making fun of, but it’s still hilarious. I also like seeing the IT guy tape the camera to PCs head in this one. I know IT guys who would really do it that way!
Posted by windley on February 7, 2007 8:42 PM
Comment from Fazal Majid at February 8, 2007 12:14 AM
User Access Control (UAC), Vista's implementation of least-privilege, which is rather intrusive in terms of how often warning popups crop up, with the risk users will just get conditioned into clicking them without reading them.
Comment from Fazal Majid at February 8, 2007 12:16 AM
Sorry, I meant User Account Control.
BTW, the SSL cert on dev.windley.net expired, leading to warning popups of another kind...
Comment from Fazal Majid at February 8, 2007 12:17 AM
Sorry, I meant User Account Control.
Comment from george1 at February 8, 2007 12:02 PM
If you've used vista, you'll immediately recognize the absurdity lampooned in the ad. If not, just take a look at how intrusive doing something simple like deleting a shortcut has become: http://flickr.com/photo_zoom.gne?id=151250154&size=o
I recently read O'Reilly's "Security and Usability," and one of the points made there is that a system that isn't usable is never secure, because users soon subvert it. That's the main problem with Vista's UAC: it only takes a few hours with this thing before even the most saavy user starts blindly clicking 'allow.'
So this ends up far worse, at the end of the day, than no UAC at all. Now, instead of having one problem, you've got two.
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