Path: utzoo!utgpu!cs.utexas.edu!uunet!munnari.oz.au!brolga!uqcspe!cs.uq.oz.au!rhys
From: rhys@cs.uq.oz.au (Rhys Weatherley)
Newsgroups: alt.sources.d
Subject: Re: sux, an enhancer for su
Message-ID: <982@uqcspe.cs.uq.oz.au>
Date: 25 Apr 91 19:27:21 GMT
References: <1991Apr25.024719.4127@convex.com> 	<462@frcs.UUCP> 	<7WYA.A2@xds13.ferranti.com> <130392@uunet.UU.NET>
Sender: news@cs.uq.oz.au
Reply-To: rhys@cs.uq.oz.au
Lines: 23

In <130392@uunet.UU.NET> kyle@uunet.uu.net (Kyle Jones) writes:

>Which kills the basic usefulness of the command!  The whole point
>was to avoid typing a password.  The idea behind this easy su
>seems to be to let the right users _conveniently_ become root, so
>they can do so often for short periods--- instead of creating one
>root shell and using it all day, eventually forgetting that they
>are root and destroying something.

Which doesn't stop the wrong user from stepping up to the right user's
terminal when the right user is on a coffee break or whatever, typing
"sux" and creating general havoc.  If "sux" had a password then the
most the wrong user could do was mess up anything the right user can do
as him or herself.  Diligence on the part of the right user will avoid
this problem, but sooner or later he or she will forget to logoff or
lock their terminal or room, and chaos will begin.

Rhys.

+=====================+==================================+
||  Rhys Weatherley   |  The University of Queensland,  ||
||  rhys@cs.uq.oz.au  |  Australia.  G'day!!            ||
+=====================+==================================+