Now people with alternative intentions in mind can get a promotion beyond administrator and become…. won’t say it to stay on good terms with …. This ZDNet Japanese article was released late last night, so don’t know if the English press caught on yet or not – here is the synopsis.

In a nutshell, if you create a directory in Windows XP, Vista, and Win7 and name it “GodMode.{ED7BA470-8E54-465E-825C-99712043E01C}” without the quotes, then open that folder, all of the control panel, system admin tools, and everything you need to take control of a locked down system becomes available. We’ve tried it and it works quite well
There is a saving grace to this flaw, however. If your domain policies are properly setup, any changes that happen will only be temporary. I think a logout is required for those policies to be re-reinforced, so systems can stay pawned as long as you stay logged in…. which most hackers do.
UPDATE: Just found out that this ZDNet article was originally from CBS Interactive in the US.
UPDATE 2: A friend of mine just reported the it doesn’t work with XP, just Vista and Win7.