Newsgroups: comp.bugs.4bsd
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@utzoo.uucp (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: bin owns stuff (was: Installing 4.3-Tahoe on a VAX)
Message-ID: <1988Sep13.235650.5856@utzoo.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology
References: <26049@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <5416@zodiac.UUCP> <21791@sgi.SGI.COM>
Date: Tue, 13 Sep 88 23:56:50 GMT

In article <21791@sgi.SGI.COM> vjs@rhyolite.SGI.COM (Vernon Schryver) writes:
>Some people, outside BSD, have long thot everything should be owned by
>'bin' and not uid=0.  This belief seems common in System V land.

Not to mention other places and people.  Ken Thompson and Dennis Ritchie,
for example.  Why do you think the "bin" uid **EXISTS**???  Its purpose
is to own most of the system files.  For one thing, this makes it possible
to do most system work without the dangers involved in working as root.
The problem is not with bin ownership; the problem is with ridiculously
insecure networking schemes which are crudely patched to protect root (but
nobody else) from some of their defects.  Fix the problem, not the symptoms!
-- 
NASA is into artificial        |     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
stupidity.  - Jerry Pournelle  | uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu