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Comment by skrebbel | Hacker News Reader

I'm a Windows user. Virtually every piece of software I install comes in the form of an executable, that I download-and-run directly from the browser. I often give this executable administrator priviledges. The executable can then do whatever it wants on my computer. Usually it will install said piece of software (except when it was made by Oracle, it'll install said software and the Ask.com toolbar)

This has been standard practice for decades. It's very comprable to that wget oneliner. Why is it bad? Or, why is the wget oneliner bad but not Windows installers? Do Windows sysadmins compile tarballs and verify checksums? Or are Windows sysadmins simply dumber/less paranoid than Linux sysadmins?

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You're giving those executables full control over your computer. Yeah, you won't get burned very often (depending on where you're getting these executables.) But when you do get burned it's going to be catastrophic. That's the problem.

It's a bad practice.

Hm, I see your point.

How would you then recommend installing non open source software on a production system? E.g. a freeware (but proprietary) FTP server or a database engine.

If you are taking recommendations, I wouldn't recommend installing them at all. You could ask the authors to support a platform which has a better security model.

(Given that there are open-source and robuster-than-Windows platforms freely available.).

Cool, I'll just email MS and ask them to port Sharepoint to BSD.

Good job making an honest and good recommendation sound naive.

How is 'just ditch Windows' an honest and good recommendation?

That was a terrible recommendation. Proposing a solution when you know nothing about the situation nearly always results in a pointless solution.

Suggesting that the best way to securely install Windows packages is to use a different operating system smacks of immaturity, and is obviously not a practical solution in Windows environments.

A better suggestion might be: If you do not trust it, run it in a VM/sandbox.

That might be a good idea, assuming they do listen to user feedback.

Chrome for Windows installs to a user's own app directory. It doesn't require admin privileges.

1. Don't install software from untrusted sources. 2. The trusted sources should provide checksums so you can verify the package before installing it.

This protects you from a compromised package so long as the page you accessed the package from has not been compromised (if that page is compromised, the checksum could be changed to the new one).

I have no idea how you would verify closed source software if the checksum and package are both corrupted...

"2. The trusted sources should provide checksums so you can verify the package before installing it."

If the checksum is published to another trusted location, in addition to where you download the files, that would help in the case that an attacker compromises both the checksum and the package on the download site.

The developer could post the checksum to Twitter at the same time as making the package available for download. An attacker would need to compromise both Twitter and the download site.

Blindly installing windows executables and giving them admin privileges is at least as stupid. This being common practice is probably the primary reason botnets are easily able to exist. This being common practice is why windows sysadmins disable users from having admin privileges. Because apparently you're too dumb to be trusted with them.

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