Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!tut.cis.ohio-state.edu!unmvax!unmvax.cs.unm.edu!mike
From: mike@unmvax.cs.unm.edu (Michael I. Bushnell)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.headers
Subject: Re: administration fascism
Message-ID: <2253@unmvax.unm.edu>
Date: 1 Feb 89 03:56:56 GMT
References: <412@execu.UUCP> <7094@xanth.cs.odu.edu> <412@avsd.UUCP> <1715@helios.ee.lbl.gov> <445@avsd.UUCP>
Sender: news@unmvax.unm.edu
Reply-To: mike@unmvax.cs.unm.edu (Michael I. Bushnell)
Organization: University of No Money, Albuquerque, New Mexico
Lines: 26

In article <445@avsd.UUCP> childers@avsd.UUCP (Richard Childers) writes:

>One presumes that the advanced reader doesn't mangle his .forward ...
>
>Actually, I have been at enlightened sites where /usr/lib/aliases was writeable
>by the world. But if you can't trust your users to edit /usr/lib/aliases, then
>you probably can't trust them to edit .forward, either.


Hmmm...I disagree.  We are an "enlightened" site which lets people edit 
/usr/lib/aliases.  If someone f*cks up, then we have the simple solution
of asking "who changed the XXX alias to YYY?" and then we can explain to
them the necessity of being more careful in the future.

But if we decided that people were not trustable, then there is a hell of
a difference between mangling your OWN .forward (which only screws up your
own mail) and mangling /usr/lib/aliases (which can steal other peoples' mail,
break vital mailing lists, etc.).  

In short, it may be quite rational to protect users from eachother (by
protecting /usr/lib/aliases), but it IS facism to "protect" people from
themselves.
  Michael I. Bushnell       \     This above all; to thine own self be true
         GIG!                \    And it must follow, as the night the day,
mike@turing.cs..unm.edu      /\   Thou canst not be false to any man.
  Hmmmm..............       /  \  Farewell:  my blessing season this in thee!