Archive for category Symantec
Vista User Account Control By Norton Labs
This has to be one of the greatest tools to date made to improve Vista and it’s day to day usage. It makes UAC usable and bearable!
Vista User Account Control
User Account Control (UAC) is a new security feature in Microsoft Windows Vista that changes the architecture of the access token creation process and prevents users from logging on with full administrative rights.
While the intent of this feature may have been enhanced security, all too often users need administrative rights for tasks like installing/updating programs, and many software applications need access to run properly.
The User Account Control tool has been designed to replace the Vista UAC, to simultaneously make your system more secure while significantly improving user-friendliness.
By default, any application launched by an administrator is running with a filtered, standard user access token. When the administrator attempts to perform a task, the UAC prompts the user to approve the action. This can lead to poor user experiences because the prompts can be slow to display, and appear frequently and without warning. What’s more, because the UAC may give a false sense of security since other processes can still access the desktop, it actually raises security concerns.
The net effect is that many users find the UAC security clearance and prompting process annoying, especially those who are a computer’s only user and have all the latest Norton Internet Security software installed and updated.
The User Account Control tool will collect user input as well as information on applications causing prompts. The data will be processed to improve the comprehensiveness and robustness of the white list, which will be updatable while running the tool online.
User Access Control – Vista User Account Control – UAC | Norton Labs
Money Laundering, WoW and Symantec
There have been several sites that have posted about how, according to Symantec claimed that World of Warcraft would be used by the “bad guys” to launder money. I was confused by knowing Blizzard’s stance on Real Money Transactions (RMT, the illegal purchasing of in game currency with real money by a third “unauthorized” party ) and microtransactions (legal exchange of real money for in game items or game currency) I found this a bit odd, so I search for the report and found it. A bit of digging found this:
Many PVWs (persistent virtual world) and MMOGs allow players to conduct real-money transactions (RMTs) in virtual worlds. Players
can use credit cards or other payment methods to purchase virtual credits and then exchange those credits
with players in other countries, where they may be withdrawn back into local currencies. These RMTs give
rise to a de facto international monetary system. There are even exchanges in place for trading (virtual)
currency across virtual worlds or different games.
This is the text imply’s that the maker of the games allows the RMTs but if follow the footnote and read the referred story:
http://games.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=07/06/14/100255&tid=209
We learn that is third party services (services not allowed under the blizzard TOS and EULA), not the game it’s self. To be honest this type of transaction could occur in almost any online community (I.e. EBay, craigslist) that allows persons to list items for sale.
Symantec is partly correct but the money laundering threat is not really in the game but in the third party RMT sites.