I was browsing my Google Plus account today and noticed a very interesting post by Linus Torvalds regarding security in operating systems. In this post, Linus was stressing security being too strict in OpenSUSE as this is the operating system installed on his daughter's computer. One day, his daughter called him from school as she required the root password to add a printer and connect to the wireless network. He makes a great point that this is taking security too far. Being in the IT field, I feel you have to have at least some trust (let me stress, very little) of your users or security becomes more annoying than effective. For the points that Linus is making, I completely agree. Connecting your laptop to a new wireless network or adding a new printer are simple tasks that should not require a root password. If the users that I support had to call me every time that they tried to connect to a different wireless network or add a printer then I wouldn't have time to do anything else.
When security is being added to an operating system or even a network, there are many points to consider. I believe one of the main things to keep in mind is that security is very important but should not hinder the use of the computer. While I have not used the latest version of OpenSUSE personally, I believe that this is taking security too far as it keeps the users from being able to even function effectively on their computer. This same lesson can be applied to application development as well. You must allow the user's to make some decisions on their own or they will become frustrated with user experience.
