(no subject)

[chaobell]

Gentleman brings in an XP box that won't load Windows.

Try to boot from floppy. Need to change boot order in BIOS. Encounter BIOS password. Password yields to brute force after six attempts. Not a fantastic password, but it did take some thinking. Life is good.

Boot from floppy, run Troubleshooter as per standard operating procedure. Go do something else for a while.

Return when Troubleshooter is done, attempt to start Windows using last good settings. Windows starts right up. Great. Now to plop Norton on and scan...

Now we have a problem. Four users on this machine, all of them with very good passwords I can't figure out. Customer isn't home.

Just for shits and giggles, I start the machine up in safe mode.

This individual, who is so anal about security that he has put a BIOS password and really good user passwords on this machine...has no Administrator password.

And has given his two kids, who have been merrily sticking Kazaa and its associated bullshit all over this machine, full administrator rights.

I take a short break to laugh and laugh and laugh.

Create new user, install Norton, get rid of nasties, get rid of spyware, life is good, computer is happy.

I was severely tempted to put a text file containing nothing but the word "OWNED" on the desktop of every other user on the machine, though. And take all their admin rights away.

Comments

[hoffman-log.livejournal.com]

these are my favorite people. Not the ones who are completely oblivious to security, they're just dumb. My favorites are the ones who implement security measures, but really have no idea what they're doing. Then when you get around them it's kind of an extra satisfaction that you can look them dead in the eye and scream

NOOB!!!!

_MaH

[wildkard.livejournal.com]

not to take away from your original points... but you have to wonder about the efficiveness of "not giving the kids admin rights" when I have no less then 10 games here that require admin rights in XP to run.
The Sims for instance just acts funny without them.

on the other hand... runas.exe is a useful tool.

[achernow.livejournal.com]

I had an experince like this.. We have a client software for one of our systems that would let me install and run it under 2k w/out local admin rights (we didn't need them on our accounts under 2k because we have the local admin password for all of the computers in our area) but since we switched to XP, I have to be at least a 'power user' to run it. (I had to run as Administrator to install it, though)

AC

[achernow.livejournal.com]

Wow.. I've seen computers like this... At school, they like to password protect the Administrator account, but then grant local admin rights to the users of the machines. (Then again, until they re-wrote all the security policies, a lot of the machines had NO administrator password) What a mess.. The users can go and do whatever they want (Had one today w/ "Operating System Not Found" error at boot. I found out by way of the student consultant in that college that this particular user is KNOWN for routinely screwing up his machine. He also likes to take the case off (damn non-locked quick release cases) because he thinks his machine is overheating)

AC