Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!blake!Tomobiki-Cho!mrc
From: mrc@Tomobiki-Cho.CAC.Washington.EDU (Mark Crispin)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.next
Subject: Re: time zones
Keywords: time zone setting next bugs features
Message-ID: <2333@blake.acs.washington.edu>
Date: 7 Jun 89 20:12:31 GMT
References: <11408@megaron.arizona.edu> <5139@pt.cs.cmu.edu> <1178@garcon.cso.uiuc.edu> <51362@tut.cis.ohio-state.edu>
Sender: news@blake.acs.washington.edu
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Organization: Mendou Zaibatsu, Tomobiki-Cho, Butsumetsu-Shi
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     I guess I don't understand, coming from an environment
(DEC-20/Xerox Lisp) only 8 months ago where it was assumed you
couldn't trust other machines and that even for things such as time
you made sure that what you got matched the concensus of many
machines.

     There is no security against anyone who has physical access to
the console.  Hell's bells, you can hit double-COMMAND-` to get an NMI
interrupt, halt the machine, and then boot it any way you want.  I'm
no Unix wizard, but I know how to give myself superuser access to any
NeXT I can lay my hands on, even without an account.

     I guess you could claim that this facility in Preferences opens
up such access to someone who has an account on the NeXT but doesn't
have access to the console (= logging in from another NeXT and then
doing "Preferences -Host <myhost>").  I dunno.  If you let guys log
in on a NeXT but not use the console, maybe you'll protect /NextApps
so they can't get at it.  Is anyone using NeXTs as ordinary Unix
timesharing boxes??

     The bottom line remains that anyone can do anything on the
console, at least until NeXT comes out with a model that lets you lock
out the NMI interrupt or typein to the boot ROM (e.g. by key).  So,
why not assume that anybody you allow to use your NeXTs is going to be
a responsible individual, albeit someone may need to be told what
*not* to do.  Anyone you can't trust not to do bad things in
Preferences (once instructed on what not to do at your installation)
can't be trusted with physical access to a NeXT console either.

Mark Crispin / 6158 Lariat Loop NE / Bainbridge Island, WA 98110-2020
mrc@CAC.Washington.EDU / MRC@WSMR-SIMTEL20.Army.Mil / (206) 842-2385
Atheist & Proud / 450cc Rebel pilot -- a step up from 250cc's!!!
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