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[Jerry123]

About DirectX: The good thing is that if a game tries to overwrite system files within the sandbox, it should not succeed - so it probably wont run, but it also wont be able to corrupt your system.

[gregor]

ah that's the failsafe then... well it certainly sounds interesting. kind of virtual maschine without the lag.

[Japo]

Originally Posted by gregor

ah that's the failsafe then... well it certainly sounds interesting. kind of virtual maschine without the lag.

Yes I think it's based on virtualization, only that for this special purpose.

[Jerry123]

Originally Posted by Japofran

Anyway I consider it overkill for me, considering I use a limited user account and even a HIPS program --which I could really do without I think...

Please tell me, what is a HIPS program? Never heard of it. It is amazing how many things there are. Friend of me has a Mac, obviously a good-looking machine, but the poor guy has no idea what he is missing... all the nice security measures we have in the pc world :laugh:

[dosraider]

Originally Posted by Jerry123

Please tell me, what is a HIPS program?

http://www.hips.org/

The Peer Education Program Coordinator facilitates the participation of sex worker peer educators in HIPS’ Peer Education Program, currently targeting, women, transgender women and men who engage in sex work in Washington, D.C. The Director develops the programs in consultation with the Director of Programs and the Executive Director and works collaboratively as part of the HIPS team.

....... Or more likely:
http://www.webopedia.com/TERM/H/HIPS.html

Short for host-based intrusion prevention system, HIPS is an IPS or intrusion prevention system designed for security over host-based systems where intrusions and infections are dealt with at the individual workstation level to provide a more effective level of security.

[Japo]

Well simply put, a HIPS is like a firewall, but for the CPU instead of a network. Any program that's run has to pass its monitoring. The techniques vary, some HIPS programs don't allow anything that is not in its safelist or untill the user tells that's okay, others try to detect fishy behaviour...

I've recently read in several different sources that Apple's commercial success is nearing the point where it will start to be targeted by crimeware. Actually one of them was a pice of news from the BBC that talked about a porn website that tried to install a trojan codec in Windows machines, but if it detected a Mac it offered the Mac version of the trojan. And now with Vista Windows is no longer inherently much less safe than Mac or Linux as Windows 9X was.

[Scatty]

There's still enough choice aside of the more well-known, "little-targeted" systems to remain pretty much safe from most viruses and spyware.

[Jerry123]

The HIPS systems sound interesting :amused:
Especially the CPU firewall thing. But I guess it would be bad for me. I am a litte paranoid already. If I head to deal with tons of reports and warnings from such a program, I would probably be too afraid to switch on the computer at all.. Just looking at the windows error report log makes me nervous.

But in the meantime, Id like to share my findings with www.sandboxie.com

In short, the software is amazing. I had a few older games lying around which I wanted to try out again anyway. So the list is more or less by accident, but still interesting, I think:
Alien Vs. Predator
Alien Vs. Predator 2
Red Faction
Red Faction 2
Quake 2

They all run flawlessly within Sandboxie. Should work with more modern games, too. Technically, it is all the same.

Take care to install them within the sandbox, however. It is quite easy: Once Sandboxie is installed, you get an explorer extension (right mousebutton) which says "run sandboxed". You then run the setup.exe of the game or application or whatever and it installs.

The software thinks, its installed inside your Progams directory, registry and everything. However it is just sitting inside the sandbox. Once you empty the sandbox, everything is gone. Really nice.

You can have problems with games which install their own system files, however. DirectX would be an example. But that is usually easy to overcome: Just install the software they need not-sandboxed before installing the game.

A DirectX installer should then recognize that the needed version is already installed, and let you finish the rest of the installation of the game.

[Jerry123]

One problem about Sandboxie, though: It works by modifying the Windows kernel, it seems. And that means you cannot use it on Windows Vista 64-Bit (Vista 32-Bit works, though).

The author states on his website that Microsoft still forbids such changes to the Vista kernel. The upcoming Service Pack 1 for Vista brings some way for security firms to modify the Windows kernel (for virusscanners and such), but apparently not enough for Sandboxie.

For me, personally, that is very annoying. I run Vista 64-Bit and I like it, and I would love to use Sandboxie. As things are, I have to dual-boot into Windows XP to use it. Really a sad thing. Sandboxie is only 335 KB in size!!! It is such a small, elegant solution, and very practical. I think Microsoft should have built something like this into Vista from the beginning. They did with Internet Explorer 7, as you may know: They introduced a "low permissions" class of files which works exactly like a sandbox. IE puts its files there and it itself runs as such a "low permissions" kind of software. So theoretically if something bad in the Internet attacks IE on your computer, the changes cannot get out of this kind of sandbox. Good idea, but unfortunately it is not user-customizable. I really wish Microsoft would be a little more user-friendly.

Well, anyway. It is just annoying to stumble about a nice piece of software like sandboxie and then find out that MS has just prevented you from using it on your everyday OS.

[Japo]

I don't know if the problem is about Vista enforcing prevention of kernel alterations, or that Microsoft doesn't provide his former "trusted partners" (security companies) with detailed information on the kernel, because of fear that the information might reach malware makers, for whom it would be then easier to produce malware just like it's easy for the trusted partners to produce security software because of that information. I thnk I heard about the latter case a lot when Microsoft released Vista and changed the policy. However some companies already have Vista solutions, so any should be able if it tries hard enough; and they'd better do because neglecting Vista would of course be a suicide for the near future.

Please, how do you enable that option in IE7 you talk about?