Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!rpi!rpi.edu!tale From: tale@pawl.rpi.edu (David C Lawrence) Newsgroups: comp.misc Subject: Re: Reading others' files (Was: Ten Commandments ...) Message-ID: Date: 16 Jul 89 02:28:12 GMT References: <12702@well.UUCP> <26368@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> Sender: usenet@rpi.edu Reply-To: tale@pawl.rpi.edu Distribution: comp Lines: 29 In-reply-to: mwm@eris.berkeley.edu's message of 16 Jul 89 00:58:30 GMT In article I wrote tale> If you've got something to hide, go ahead and hide it. Save yourself tale> from the consequences. I am really opposed to this fellow telling me tale> that I am practising immoral computer activity, though. In <26368@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> mwm@eris.berkeley.edu (Mike Meyer) writes: mwm> Well, you are. Or maybe you are. Or maybe you aren't. mwm> This topic comes up at irregular intervals. The answer is "it depends mwm> on the environment you're in." It also depends on what you're doing, mwm> and why. Yes, I realize all that. My complaint, however, is that the fellow who wrote this document presented it as gospel. Most of my work is in a university environment on Unix machines. Most people who would speak about the "spirit of Unix" (much the way that "spirit of USENET" is discussed) readily state that permissions of 600 on files which don't contain sensitive data (e-mail, .netrcs, et al) are quite in violation of this "spirit". Some would even argue more strongly that permissions of 644 are still too strict; I am not one of that some but I see why they say that and support their _ideals_ if not their practises. Yet this fellow comes along and says that I can't look in files that aren't mine with no exceptions ... he just says "don't do it". That is my complaint regarding this part of the Ten Commandments which were posted. Dave -- (setq mail '("tale@pawl.rpi.edu" "tale@itsgw.rpi.edu" "tale@rpitsmts.bitnet"))