Sunday, October 28, 2007

New security features on Leopard

Scott McNulty over at The Unofficial Apple Weblog listed what's new with security under Leopard.

What's new and improved?
  • Tagging downloaded Apps: This feature seems to be what Microsoft was trying to do with Vista. The first time you launch a downloaded app Leopard will ask you if you really want to run this app and display from whence this app came.
  • Application specific firewall: You can set the firewall to allow or refuse connections per app.
  • Library Randomization: Places system libraries in randomly assigned memory addresses.
  • Custom access privileges for shared folders: Leopard lets you share folders, which you can do now, but also makes it easy to assign differing levels of access per shared folder. You can also use your contacts in Address Book to control access.
  • Airport Menu: The Airport Menu now tells you if the WiFi networks you're connecting to is secured. The more you know, kids, the more you know.
  • Activity Logging: This feature is both a little creepy, and secure! The best kind, if you ask me. Part of the new set of Parental Controls, though I assume you can use this to track folks other than kids, Activity Logging will log what websites a user visits, who chats with them, what apps are used, and saves a transcript of any chats.
  • Guest Log-In Accounts: Right at this moment you can create a guest account with limited permissions, so any of your friends can use your Mac without having unfettered access to your documents. Leopard has a built in feature that allows you to create Guest Accounts which purge their contents when your guest logs out. The Desktop won't be cluttered with files, Mail won't have someone else's setting waiting, and people won't come to think of the Guest Account as 'their account.'

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