Yes, and it's UNDOCUMENTED. So, let's say that I'm a malicious virus writer. I write a trojan that creates this folder, and then a script that uses controls in this folder to open ports, open access to your machine - and then do something really nasty. Say, perhaps hook your machine into a coordinated attack against the Pentagon.
Because this is undocumented, and a 'Godmode' sort of thing, it's completely conceivable that you can shut down every security precaution that Windows has - and completely remove your data, and write 1's over your data; load nasty things from an off-shore website, and steal your identity, use your machine as a Zombie - there is no limit.
All because of this 'Undocumented Feature'. There are limits on the OS, for very good reasons. This allegedly bypasses those limitations, and there is nothing that indicates what you CANNOT do. This is bad - if you can do it; so can a script written by someone you do not know.
I think you are overstating things here. There was nothing before that under your extreme scenario that couldn’t be done by a hacker. The same file extension would need to be entered, the same protocols would need to be followed all this does is provide a compiled list for the end user of all the functions available in a single folder.
There's nothing there that wasn't already on the system before that folder was created.
"GodMode" is just a name the person who came up with it gave it. "NerdMode" would probably be more accurate.
There's nothing particularly God-like about it. It doesn't enable a hacker to do anything they couldn't do before. Everything in that folder already existed on the system before the GodMode folder was created. If a hacker wrote a program to utilize something in that folder, he'd reference it from the normal default installation location rather than try and get it from a folder that might or might not be there.
Nah - This is all hokey system settings crap - Available elsewhere in system settings and control panel stuff.
"god mode" as I have always known it, is accessing the "System" desktop or console... and that has been there since at least Win2k (any reasonable hacker can find out how). As "System", one has the greatest authority possible in a local box.
I don’t think you understand what is this article is stating. The title is wrong...it should be handy feature in Windows7 allows you to create a folder full of admin tools that exist everywhere on your machine, but as stated...it’s handy to have them in one place.
Nah. Much ado about nothing. This doesn't bypass anything except worthless poofy icons.
I enabled this so-called "God Mode" on my Win7 boxes as soon as I heard about it, and yeah, it's handy, I use it rather than the normal Control Panel entry. But there's nothing in God Mode that isn't in the Control Panel -- it's just the Control Panel, organized and presented correctly.
Personally I think it's completely misnamed. It should be "Control Panel for people who understand computers and like lists more than poofy icons".
The Mac used to list the Control Panel controls in a nice handy drop-down menu, but then they went to the poofy icons. Microsoft seems to have copied the Mac's decision, but finally in Win7 somebody said, "You know, real computer people prefer lists, let's give them a list. And since anyone like that is a Computer God, let's call it "God Mode"."
Kudos to Microsoft on this one.