Path: utzoo!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!clarkson!news
From: help@kendra.kew.com (Drew Derbyshire - UUPC/extended Help Desk)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: UUPC nuking command.com? (was Re: UUPC 1.08a available)
Message-ID: <1990Sep11.182734.11183@news.clarkson.edu>
Date: 11 Sep 90 18:27:34 GMT
References: <8158@helios.TAMU.EDU>
Sender: ahd@clutx.clarkson.edu (Drew Derbyshire)
Reply-To: help@kendra.kew.com (Drew Derbyshire - UUPC/extended Help Desk)
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From article <8158@helios.TAMU.EDU>, by billg@cs.tamu.edu (William Gunshannon):
> I would think that rather than trying to hack something into MSDOS 
> that it doesn't support/understand (SECURITY), you would be much
> better off to make all file transfers INTO the PC go into a spooling
> directory (uucppublic), and leave the final disposition up to the
> PC user.  There are other files that  you probably don't want over-writen
> other than command.com (BIOS.SYS comes immediately to mind) and rather
> than trying to protect all these obscure files, I think it would be
> much easier to just put them all in one directory and have the user
> sort them out.
> 
> Comments??

UUCP itself doesn't exactly seem brilliant in its treatment of files; if
you want the level of security allowed by UUCP, it's really not that
hard to do in MS-DOS with UUPC.  Note that by limiting the user to a
selected directory sub-tree you have locked out all your system files
(mostly in the root directory), and by preventing overwritng of
read-only, system, or hidden files you have provided additional
security.  I would also, I think, set the default to no overwriting of
existing files at all; this will lock your MS-DOS system under UUPC as
well as UUCP itself allows.

Certainly the distributed default would be only writing to the UUPC
public directory; after all, most people only want mail.  However, by not
allowing other options, you restrict the functionality.

Drew Derbyshire

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