NIS: Locking features

The locking feature is confusing unfortunately. We're working to make this better in the future.

The locks are there mainly for non-administrators who need to modify their NIS settings. For example, if you allow your child to log into your Mac, you might need to change the settings for the firewall quickly--the locks will let you authenticate as an administrator and change the settings while using your child's account. 

But if you are already logged into your Mac as an administrator, then the locks don't work properly as you noticed. They basically don't do anything because the NIS features can be changed by any administrator. 

Just to clarify: The locks are NOT there to protect your Mac from anything. They are NOT a security feature. Clicking the lock doesn't make the product more or less secure, because anybody who can click the lock is already sitting at your Mac! Norton products don't really protect against people who already have physical access to your Mac, they are there to protect you from threats on the Internet.

If you want to prevent people from changing your NIS settings while they are setting at your keyboard, make sure your Mac has a good password—otherwise anybody who is malicious and sitting at your keyboard could just delete all the files on your Mac or uninstall the Norton software altogether. The locks are only there to allow administrators edit their Norton application settings when logged in as a non-administrator.

Admittedly, this is very unclear from the UI, and we're working to resolve that. Sorry for the confusion.