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From: mrm@sceard.Sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,alt.security
Subject: Re: BSD tty security, part 4: What You Can Look Forward To
Message-ID: <1991May17.142928.28492@sceard.Sceard.COM>
Date: 17 May 91 14:29:28 GMT
References: <729@seqp4.UUCP> <14768@ulysses.att.com> <19271@rpp386.cactus.org> <1775:May1420:06:1291@kramden.acf.nyu.edu> <19280@rpp386.cactus.org>
Reply-To: mrm@Sceard.COM (M.R.Murphy)
Organization: The Mole and Badger Association of Northern San Diego County
Lines: 31

In article <19280@rpp386.cactus.org> jfh@rpp386.cactus.org (John F Haugh II) writes:
[...]
>
>See above.  These aren't little programmer weenies who don't know
>how UNIX works.  This is why features like access revocation exist
>in the first place - think of all the ways you can get access to
>a device.  Now think of a way to revoke all those ways.  There are
>only so many system calls, it shouldn't be that hard to figure out
>which ones affect tty access.
>

Not when the number of system calls increases faster than you can read
about 'em.

This is not intended as a flame at jfh. It's a broad flame at lots of folks,
me included, sometimes.

I know that thinking about all the security stuff is fun. It also is or can
be lucrative. Think of it as welfare for computer dweebs. But sometimes,
just sometimes, I wish that I could use my home system for crystal structure
refinement without all that security crap getting in my way.

I also wonder from time to time how much of the security software, no, amend
that to system software in general comes from people who, even if they RTFM,
don't UTFM and certainly don't understand the philosophy behind TFM. You'd
hope, if they did, that the solutions would be a whole lot simpler. Or
wouldn't be needed in the first place.

Oh, well.
-- 
Mike Murphy  mrm@Sceard.COM  ucsd!sceard!mrm  +1 619 598 5874