Let's see, Mac OS 9's been out for all of a week now, and already people are starting to find some potentially serious security holes. Faithful viewer Justin noted a problem with the new operating system's "Console Lock" feature, as reported by Security Focus. You're aware, of course, that Mac OS 9 adds basic support for multiple users? The idea is that if you've got a Mac that's shared by several people, each user can have a distinct set of applications, different access to folders, individual preferences and settings, and all that good stuff. No more manually shifting email folders around to accommodate different family members, etc.

Unfortunately, as soon as you start dealing with multiple users, you start having to worry about security issues. Presumably you don't want your kids to be able to log in to the family Mac with your password and start diverting funds from the mortgage budget into their allowance. (Great, so the house got repossessed, but the kids are tooling around in state-of-the-art go-karts all hepped up on a lifetime supply of Pixie Stix.) That's why Apple added the "Console Lock" feature to Mac OS 9; if you leave the Mac idle for a certain amount of time, the screen "locks" and you have to enter the current user's password to get back in. Alternately, there's an option to log out the current user, so if Dad wandered off to watch VIP, little Johnny can log him out and log back in with his own password.

Here's where the problem comes in: as Johnny clicks the button to log out dear ol' Dad, all of Dad's applications start to quit. But if Dad left his fan letter to Pamela Lee unsaved in his word processor, a dialog box will appear asking if the document should be saved. At that point all Johnny needs to do is click "Cancel" and the shutdown process will be aborted-- leaving him logged in to Dad's account without ever having had to enter a password. Woo-hoo! Let's see what these pictures are that Dad downloaded from the Internet. Hmmm, Mom sure would like to know about these. Time to blackmail Pops for a bigger allowance...