Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!news-server.csri.toronto.edu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!auspex!guy
From: guy@auspex.auspex.com (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.internals
Subject: Re: String uids for power and security
Message-ID: <4110@auspex.auspex.com>
Date: 29 Sep 90 22:07:02 GMT
References: <8611@fy.sei.cmu.edu> <18525:Sep2703:51:0090@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <18553@rpp386.cactus.org>
Organization: Auspex Systems, Santa Clara
Lines: 15

>The cheap solution is to just make UIDs 32 bits.  This is what was
>done in AIX 3.1 (over the protestations of our dear friends at AT&T,
>The Protectors Of The Holy Squid), and is now I understand being
>done with V.4.

It is, at least for all systems conforming to any of the ABIs defined
for S5R4; UIDs, GIDs, process ID's, inumbers, "dev_t"s, "int"s (yes,
"int"s, no ABI-conforming system can have "int"s shorter than 32 bits),
link counts, and file modes ("st_mode" in the "stat" structure) must be
32 bits or longer in any ABI-conforming system.

>In a really sick universe you would be known by your 32 bit user ID
>and your 32 bit host IP address.

Said universe gets even sicker if, as, and when it converts to ISO....