...is that it tells me it's going to ask my permission for something 
before it asks my permission.

A smart program would figure out that if I say "yes" to the first, I'm 
probably going to say "yes" to the second as well.

-- 
...Chambers
www.pacificwebguy.com

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On Wed, 04 Mar 2009 19:41:08 -0800, Chambers wrote:

> A smart program would figure out that if I say "yes" to the first, I'm
> probably going to say "yes" to the second as well.

In the words of Adam Savage, "well, THERE'S your problem!"

Jm

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Chambers wrote:
> ...is that it tells me it's going to ask my permission for something 
> before it asks my permission.

But this is part of the security bit. If it doesn't tell you it's going to 
ask permission first, then you can't tell someone "only say it's OK if it 
already asked you and you agree with what it's asking."

Like, I taught my computer-naive relatives to not say "yes" unless they had 
just clicked on an icon with a shield on it. Otherwise, J Random Virus will 
come up and ask for permission, and you won't know what to answer. The only 
time the Windows stuff asks for permission twice is when it doesn't know 
that (for example) it's unable to delete the file you asked it to delete 
before it tries to delete it.

It's not perfect, but it's darn close. And apparently the API for it is much 
more capable than most people (including MS) take advantage of. It doesn't 
*have* to prompt every time - it just doesn't bother to cache the results.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 08:51:47 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Chambers wrote:
>> ...is that it tells me it's going to ask my permission for something
>> before it asks my permission.
> 
> But this is part of the security bit. If it doesn't tell you it's going
> to ask permission first, then you can't tell someone "only say it's OK
> if it already asked you and you agree with what it's asking."

Perhaps, but I do agree with Chambers on this one - how many times have 
we seen:

1.  Click on "Exit"
2.  "Are you sure?"
3.  Yes
4.  "You're going to be exiting.  Are you sure that you really want to do 
this?"
5.  Yes
6.  "We're going to ask you one more time.  Really sure you want to do 
this?"
7.  YES!
8.  "Sorry, your request can't be processed at this time."

Or some variant thereof.  I can think of situations where asking multiple 
times does make sense, like in our practical exams - there's an "End 
Exam" button, but we verify that the user meant to end the exam because 
once they end, they can't get back in.

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> Perhaps, but I do agree with Chambers on this one - how many times have 
> we seen:

Sure. That's a little different from "Hey, I'm about to ask you to enter the 
root password now, because I need that to do what you asked, OK?"  It's not 
asking multiple times. It's telling you it got an error which it might be 
able to work around if it asks for the password.

It's the same as saying
% rm xyz
Permission denied
% sudo rm xyz
Password:

Suddenly, you have to ask twice, once by typing sudo, once by entering the 
password. Why wouldn't "rm xyz" just automatically prompt for the password?

Which is not to say it's perfect. But it's better than having something 
randomly pop up a security prompt without telling you what it's for.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Jim Henderson wrote:

> 1.  Click on "Exit"
> 2.  "Are you sure?"
> 3.  Yes
> 4.  "You're going to be exiting.  Are you sure that you really want to do 
> this?"
> 5.  Yes
> 6.  "We're going to ask you one more time.  Really sure you want to do 
> this?"
> 7.  YES!
> 8.  "Sorry, your request can't be processed at this time."

I'm sorry, Dave. I can't let you do that.

-- 
~Mike

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On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 13:15:59 -0600, Mike Raiford wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
> 
>> 1.  Click on "Exit"
>> 2.  "Are you sure?"
>> 3.  Yes
>> 4.  "You're going to be exiting.  Are you sure that you really want to
>> do this?"
>> 5.  Yes
>> 6.  "We're going to ask you one more time.  Really sure you want to do
>> this?"
>> 7.  YES!
>> 8.  "Sorry, your request can't be processed at this time."
> 
> I'm sorry, Dave. I can't let you do that.

LOL

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On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:10:38 -0800, Darren New wrote:

> Jim Henderson wrote:
>> Perhaps, but I do agree with Chambers on this one - how many times have
>> we seen:
> 
> Sure. That's a little different from "Hey, I'm about to ask you to enter
> the root password now, because I need that to do what you asked, OK?" 
> It's not asking multiple times. It's telling you it got an error which
> it might be able to work around if it asks for the password.
> 
> It's the same as saying
> % rm xyz
> Permission denied
> % sudo rm xyz
> Password:

I think that's a little different than the scenario that was discussed, 
though - "I'm going to ask you for permission, OK?", followed by "I'm 
asking you for permission" is a little confusing.

It would be better for the second prompt to just explain about it rather 
than have an additional prompt.

> Suddenly, you have to ask twice, once by typing sudo, once by entering
> the password. Why wouldn't "rm xyz" just automatically prompt for the
> password?
> 
> Which is not to say it's perfect. But it's better than having something
> randomly pop up a security prompt without telling you what it's for.

The better design would be for the prompt to tell you at the time it 
comes up, not to warn you "I'm going to prompt you in a second for 
permission for this".  If it does that, it might as well also say "Oh, by 
the way, I just asked you for permission for this.  Did you see that 
prompt?" after it's asked for permission.  And then confirm that next 
dialog.  And so on. ;-)

Jim

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Jim Henderson wrote:
> On Thu, 05 Mar 2009 11:10:38 -0800, Darren New wrote:
> 
>> Jim Henderson wrote:
>>> Perhaps, but I do agree with Chambers on this one - how many times have
>>> we seen:
>> Sure. That's a little different from "Hey, I'm about to ask you to enter
>> the root password now, because I need that to do what you asked, OK?" 
>> It's not asking multiple times. It's telling you it got an error which
>> it might be able to work around if it asks for the password.
>>
>> It's the same as saying
>> % rm xyz
>> Permission denied
>> % sudo rm xyz
>> Password:
> 
> I think that's a little different than the scenario that was discussed, 
> though - "I'm going to ask you for permission, OK?", followed by "I'm 
> asking you for permission" is a little confusing.

I suppose. It's the same sequence of events as the Unix mechanism, except 
the Unix mechanism doesn't give you the same kind of prompt. It makes you 
start over, instead.

> It would be better for the second prompt to just explain about it rather 
> than have an additional prompt.

Maybe. On the other hand, this way they can make the code small and clean, 
without having (perhaps) a problem with getting to the help file and so on. 
I.e., if you made it so the prompt could tell you everything you needed to 
know, it might wind up needing things that only the unprivileged session can 
get to anyway.

I'm not saying it's the best way to do it. I'm just saying it's not as bad 
as people make it out to be, because such a warning is actually more 
consistent than randomly popping up a box asking for the admin password.

> The better design would be for the prompt to tell you at the time it 
> comes up, not to warn you "I'm going to prompt you in a second for 
> permission for this".

Why would that be better?  I think I've already explained why the two-prompt 
is better. I think your mechanism is only better if you're a nerd and you 
already know when you're doing something that's going to trigger the prompt.

Explain to someone who doesn't understand computers how to tell when it's OK 
to answer yes to the prompt.

-- 
   Darren New, San Diego CA, USA (PST)
   My fortune cookie said, "You will soon be
   unable to read this, even at arm's length."

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Chambers wrote:
> ...is that it tells me it's going to ask my permission for something 
> before it asks my permission.
> 
> A smart program would figure out that if I say "yes" to the first, I'm 
> probably going to say "yes" to the second as well.

And here's a perfect example: try to create a new folder in "Program Files"
using windows explorer. You will get a UAC prompt to create the folder. Fair
enough. But the folder is called "New Folder" ... and very few people will leave
it named that. Yet renaming it immediately invokes another UAC prompt.

The *smart* thing for Microsoft to do would be to not actually create the folder
until you've specified what name you want for it (and allowing 'New Folder' as
default if you don't care), or at a minimum allow the account that created the
folder the right to rename it also ... yet they don't.

The reason? I don't think it's because they're dumb, I think it's because they
just don't care. After all, it's not their time being wasted.

-- Chris

NB I hear this is fixed in Windows 7, though in what way I don't know.

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