Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:12369 news.sysadmin:1423
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!osu-cis!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!mailrus!ames!joyce!sri-unix!quintus!ok
From: ok@quintus.uucp (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: Worm/Passwords
Message-ID: <672@quintus.UUCP>
Date: 13 Nov 88 09:06:31 GMT
References: <22401@cornell.UUCP> <4627@rayssd.ray.com> <8563@rpp386.Dallas.TX.US> <125@embossed.UUCP>
Sender: news@quintus.UUCP
Reply-To: ok@quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe)
Organization: Quintus Computer Systems, Inc.
Lines: 28

In article <125@embossed.UUCP> ron@embossed.UUCP (Ron Elliott) writes:
>	4) Many of you talk about the thousands of hours lost due to 
>	   the Morris Worm.  How about something like "rm *" ?  How many
>	   hours have been lost over the last 15 years over that 
>	   bug-feature.?  Yes, I know the workarounds, and have installed
>	   them.  How come though Un*x venders still havn't issued fixed
>	   rm's or even discuss the matter in their documentation?  Or
>	   even supplied the workarounds in their distribution?

You usually know when rm * happens, and if your site has a competent
administrator you can recover your state as of the previous day.  An
rm mistake doesn't erode the trust in a world-wide community!

Now, how _do_ you fix "rm *"?  Suppose you restrict rm to delete exactly
one file.  Watch:
	foreach F (* .o)
	    rm $F
	end
OOPS!  Major bug in foreach!  Better fix that.
	for F in * .o
	do rm $F
	done
OOPS!  Major bug in for!  Better fix that.
	echo * .o | xargs -l1 rm 
OOPS!  Major bugs in echo and xargs!  Better fix them.

Moral: you can't change _one_ thing.
PS: I first heard about "rm *" in the Unix V7 documentation...