Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!csd4.milw.wisc.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!yale!Horne-Scott
From: Horne-Scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne)
Newsgroups: comp.misc
Subject: Re: Ten Commandments of Personal Computing
Message-ID: <68274@yale-celray.yale.UUCP>
Date: 1 Aug 89 16:35:24 GMT
References: <66667@yale-celray.yale.UUCP> <1393@helios.mmsac.UUCP> <1005@unify.UUCP>
Sender: root@yale.UUCP
Reply-To: Horne-Scott@cs.yale.edu (Scott Horne)
Organization: Yale University Computer Science Dept, New Haven, CT   06520-2158
Lines: 38
In-reply-to: jde@unify.UUCP (Jeff Evarts)

In article <1005@unify.UUCP>, jde@unify (Jeff Evarts) writes:
> In article <1393@helios.mmsac.UUCP> eben@mmsac.UUCP (Eben R.S. Visher) writes:
> >Scott Horne hit it on the head: read permission to my files is
> >implicit permission to browse. 
> 
> I disagree, but what follows is what I really contest...

I don't.  :-)

> >[...] if you don't want it seen, then RSA or
> >DES it (of course, if you simply crypt(1) it, you're inviting someone
> >to spend 7 minutes with Crypt Breaker's Workbench).
> 
> Okay, there are no smileys here, so I'm assuming you meant what you said.
> ABSOLUTELY NOT!  This is frankly rediculous. This kind of "If I CAN do it,
> it must be OK with you" attitude is a real problem in today's computer
> industry.

I see what you mean, but I don't think that Eben Visher meant that.  It seems
that that remark about `crypt' was made as a warning about security, not as a
suggestion that people should be allowed to browse ~/personal/top_secret.crypt
just because the decryption method is well-known.

> The
> idea that I would have to encrypt a file to keep a coworker out of it
> really scares me. This is not the way things should be run.

Does the idea that you should have to use a password scare you?  How about the
idea that you should have to lock your door?  Take your keys out of the car?
Seal your envelopes?  Hide your valuables?

					--Scott

Scott Horne                     Undergraduate programmer, Yale CS Dept Facility
horne@cs.Yale.edu                         ...!{harvard,cmcl2,decvax}!yale!horne
Home: 203 789-0877     SnailMail:  Box 7196 Yale Station, New Haven, CT   06520
Work: 203 432-1260              Summer residence:  175 Dwight St, New Haven, CT
Dare I speak for the amorphous gallimaufry of intellectual thought called Yale?