Administrative access considered harmful
By
FredrikSvanberg,
Posted on: 2011-05-29 10:18 in ALL ACCESS Gameplay Technical Issues Bugs
A "known-sleazy" company?
What do you know that we don't?
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Unfortunately, Microsoft's documentation also states that applications should be installed to the Program Files [(x86)] directory and that global (i.e. Not user-specific) settings should be placed either in the application directory or in HKLM (The All Users profile has been deprecated since Vista). These locations all require administrative rights (either directly or via elevation) to write to.
I would be genuinely interested to hear your suggestions for how else a mass-market application specifically designed to interact with frequently updated games, such as the NCSoft Launcher, could be designed so that it does *not* need administrative rights.
For those keeping track, I don't like the NCSoft Launcher, for several reasons, none of which are this
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The launcher offers to take full ownership of any pertinent game directories, so that you do indeed fully own the files. If you were to install City of Heroes within C:\Program Files, then you would not own the City of Heroes directory. After taking ownership, no admin rights are required. The NCSoft Launcher asks for this privilege once, and fully explains what it is doing. After that, it never asks for admin rights again.
In contrast, the old launcher was written before UAC and limited user access existed.
Calling NCSoft shady is hearsay. If they are so shady, why do you give them your personal details and bank information?
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I didn't realise that was the case, however, given the number of support threads I've seen caused by the Launcher not having sufficient rights to do what it needs to, I have my doubts about its effectiveness |
Originally Posted by Necrotron
The launcher offers to take full ownership of any pertinent game directories, so that you do indeed fully own the files. If you were to install City of Heroes within C:\Program Files, then you would not own the City of Heroes directory. After taking ownership, no admin rights are required. The NCSoft Launcher asks for this privilege once, and fully explains what it is doing. After that, it never asks for admin rights again.
In contrast, the old launcher was written before UAC and limited user access existed. Calling NCSoft shady is hearsay. If they are so shady, why do you give them your personal details and bank information? |
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I don't need a vote. I have nothing but contempt for Microsoft. Their entire concept of security is pathetic and they constantly think they know what the end user wants/needs better than the users themselves, even when it has nothing to do with security concerns.|
Originally Posted by seebs
I dunno. I've been out a bit, and I'm actually sorta wanting to play again (kept my accounts active against such an eventuality...), but this launcher thing pretty much instantly killed my enthusiasm. Yeah, I know. You guys don't get a vote.
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If this creeps you out, then fine, don't play the game. But it doesn't concern me in the slightest. I have a third-party firewall on my system to keep MICROSOFT in check. I don't rely on them for my computer security. I maintain tight security DESPITE Microsoft's 'best efforts'.
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User rights were never intended for security purposes, they were put in place so users would not be able to accidentally change something important.
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Perhaps, but it's hard to argue that they haven't been reconned into doing so, whatever their effectiveness.
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Originally Posted by _Klaw_
User rights were never intended for security purposes, they were put in place so users would not be able to accidentally change something important.
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It has not yet offered any such thing to me. Several times during a session, it announced that I was unexpectedly not running as admin, and that it needed to write to the registry, and I'd have to specially authorize this.|
Originally Posted by Necrotron
The launcher offers to take full ownership of any pertinent game directories, so that you do indeed fully own the files.
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| If you were to install City of Heroes within C:\Program Files, then you would not own the City of Heroes directory. |
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After taking ownership, no admin rights are required. The NCSoft Launcher asks for this privilege once, and fully explains what it is doing. After that, it never asks for admin rights again. In contrast, the old launcher was written before UAC and limited user access existed. |
If I own the game folder, I can run the old launcher without admin rights and everything is fine, including updates.
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| Calling NCSoft shady is hearsay. |
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| If they are so shady, why do you give them your personal details and bank information? |
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This may have been true on Windows, but in the parts of the world that are not dominated by botnets, user rights also provide basic security, such as keeping malicious applications from damaging or controlling the operating system.
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Originally Posted by _Klaw_
User rights were never intended for security purposes, they were put in place so users would not be able to accidentally change something important.
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I am fine with requiring admin rights, once, to install software.|
Originally Posted by The_Spad_EU
Unfortunately, Microsoft's documentation also states that applications should be installed to the Program Files [(x86)] directory and that global (i.e. Not user-specific) settings should be placed either in the application directory or in HKLM (The All Users profile has been deprecated since Vista). These locations all require administrative rights (either directly or via elevation) to write to.
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Past that... I am not so fine with it.
Original CoH, and the original launcher, I handled by changing ownership of the game. Hasn't used admin privs at any point since I set that up manually, and the launcher itself hasn't been given admin privs ever. (I ran the first pass install, then fixed permissions, then let the old launcher "update" the game from a non-install to a full install.)
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| I would be genuinely interested to hear your suggestions for how else a mass-market application specifically designed to interact with frequently updated games, such as the NCSoft Launcher, could be designed so that it does *not* need administrative rights. |
Once the user has fixed that, though, it should not be demanding admin-level write access to the entire system registry.
Other programs are somehow able to update settings and so on without needing admin privs...
Basically, I accept that the Windows model requires admin privs by default, but I also note that they've designed it so you can make a given program run fine without admin privs. I've done this successfully for both CoH and RIFT, but the new ncsoft launcher appears to need to do something other than modify the game directory.
A lot of games require admin rights. CoH is hardly unique in this aspect.
NCSoft Launcher does not request Ring-0 access, so no, it does not involve giving the program unbounded access.
That said, I don't experience your problem. It asked once and then shut up.
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It asked once during install, explained why, never prompted again. Of course, my CoH directory is not even on my C drive, let alone anywhere near the Program directory.
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Originally Posted by Necrotron
Calling NCSoft shady is hearsay.
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Originally Posted by seebs
They're an MMO company.
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The NCSoft Launcher also needs access to its own directory. You might want to take that into account.
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They can take my full name, address, date of birth, email address and credit card details, but I'll be buggered if I'm letting them write data to an arbitrary location on my computer!
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Originally Posted by Ironblade
<snort> And we're supposed to take your concerns seriously after a paranoid comment like that?
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Silly me. I thought that, since I had built a Windows machine to run games, the new launcher wouldn't be a big deal.
Wrong.
The new launcher requires administrative access. Why? according to them, it's so it can update some registry entries.
This is... Not secure. Not sane. Not consistent with the very clear and consistent advice MS gives about developing for modern Windows.
Look, I know you guys don't get a vote in this crap. Just... if people are wondering why some of us log in less than we used to, or possibly never? Yeah, the thing where I now have to give a program written by a known-sleazy company unbounded admin privs in order to play the game is gonna be a factor there.
There is no excuse for this. If my game files are all writable by the user that actually runs the game, then we're done; the ncsoft launcher could keep its data in a location that doesn't require admin privileges to write. Then, in the absolutely certain event that there is a bug in the ncsoft launcher, it can't be used to escalate privileges.
Seriously, basic security concept: Don't run with privileges you don't need. If rewriting the program from the ground up in a different way lets you succeed without a privilege, you didn't need it; refer back to point A.
I dunno. I've been out a bit, and I'm actually sorta wanting to play again (kept my accounts active against such an eventuality...), but this launcher thing pretty much instantly killed my enthusiasm. Yeah, I know. You guys don't get a vote. Maybe you can pass on to the people who do get a vote. Of course, the way ncsoft is run, presumably there is no communication at all between the people mandating that you run the launcher and the people who are trying to find new ways every day to make it suck more.