Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Path: utzoo!mnetor!seismo!ll-xn!ames!oliveb!sun!gorodish!guy
From: guy%gorodish@Sun.COM (Guy Harris)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: UNIX file setuid sucurity hole?
Message-ID: <15260@sun.uucp>
Date: Wed, 18-Mar-87 16:11:50 EST
Article-I.D.: sun.15260
Posted: Wed Mar 18 16:11:50 1987
Date-Received: Fri, 20-Mar-87 04:22:19 EST
References: <2168@ncoast.UUCP> <695@aw.sei.cmu.edu.sei.cmu.edu>
Sender: news@sun.uucp
Reply-To: guy@sun.UUCP (Guy Harris)
Distribution: world
Organization: Sun Microsystems, Mountain View
Lines: 20
Xref: mnetor comp.unix.wizards:1517 comp.unix.questions:1502

>> [the old Unix systems] didn't allow you to give files away (so as not to
>>defeat (the non-existent) disk space accounting procedures)
>
>How typical! Since disk accounting did not exist, AT&T have removed the
>restriction on 'chown'; the Berkley guys went on and implemented the whole
>disk accounting package...

What's *really* funny is that the USDL UNIXes have a rather elaborate
set of accounting procedures that include disk space accounting; V7
did add the "quot" command to do disk space accounting, but I presume
nobody used it so there were no disk space accounting procedures (as
opposed to disk space accounting programs).  So the systems that
permitted you to give files away were the ones that had disk space
accounting, and the ones that didn't were the ones that didn't have
disk space accouniting.

Actually, I think the restriction was lifted in PWB/UNIX (the manual
pages don't explicitly refer to such a restriction), which didn't
have disk space accounting (at least I couldn't find anything obvious
in section VIII (sic)).