Xref: utzoo news.sysadmin:1594 comp.unix.wizards:12634 Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!cwjcc!hal!ncoast!allbery From: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) Newsgroups: news.sysadmin,comp.unix.wizards Subject: Re: How to stop future viruses. Message-ID: <13149@ncoast.UUCP> Date: 19 Nov 88 17:52:46 GMT References: <16722@agate.BERKELEY.EDU> <2178@cuuxb.ATT.COM> <556@suadb.UUCP> Reply-To: allbery@ncoast.UUCP (Brandon S. Allbery) Followup-To: news.sysadmin Organization: Cleveland Public Access UN*X, Cleveland, Oh Lines: 35 As quoted from <556@suadb.UUCP> by anders@suadb.UUCP (Anders Bj|rnerstedt): +--------------- | 6. A less blunt use of the set-user-id mechanism. | Sendmail apparently needs to do rights amplification, | but I dont see why it needs superuser rights. The uucp +--------------- On networked systems, sendmail has to be able to listen on the SMTP network port -- which requires superuser permissions. +--------------- | 7. It should be *possible* to physically write lock filesystems | including the root file system. The disk write lock could +--------------- SunOS 4.x mounts / read-only, doesn't it? +--------------- | systems marked "secure". The kernel (which would itself be | placed in a secure filesystem) would only allow writes to | a secure filesystem if a physical togle was in the "open" | position. Normally the togle would be in the closed position. +--------------- Interesting thought. However, I think it should be reserved for heavy-duty security; such an arrangement, for example, would mean the end of ncoast. (Most of the maintenance on ncoast is done over the modem.) ++Brandon -- Brandon S. Allbery, comp.sources.misc moderator and one admin of ncoast PA UN*X uunet!hal.cwru.edu!ncoast!allbery ncoast!allbery@hal.cwru.edu allberyb@skybridge.sdi.cwru.edu allbery@uunet.uu.net comp.sources.misc is moving off ncoast -- please do NOT send submissions direct Send comp.sources.misc submissions to comp-sources-misc@.