Path: utzoo!attcan!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!netnews.upenn.edu!grad1.cis.upenn.edu!salex
From: salex@grad1.cis.upenn.edu (Scott Alexander)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re^2: GNU, security, and RMS
Message-ID: <11717@netnews.upenn.edu>
Date: 6 Jun 89 17:48:32 GMT
References: <106326@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <422@ladcgw.ladc.bull.com> <13688@ncoast.ORG> <29457@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU> <107977@sun.Eng.Sun.COM> <2698@solo1.cs.vu.nl>
Sender: news@netnews.upenn.edu
Reply-To: salex@grad1.cis.upenn.edu (Scott Alexander)
Organization: University of Pennsylvania
Lines: 30

In article <2698@solo1.cs.vu.nl> maart@cs.vu.nl (Maarten Litmaath) writes:
>jamesa@arabian.Sun.COM (James D. Allen) writes:
>\...	Bravo!  I'll do an occasional
>\		% chmod 600 Personal_little_black_book
>\	to discourage casual snooping, but I always make /dev/mem and
>\	/dev/disk `rw-r--r--'.  If a user wants to write his own improved
>\	`df' or `ps', more power to him.
>
>More power to the user who wants to write his own improved version of `cat' to
>get `Personal_little_black_book' from /dev/disk itself.
>-- 
> "Your password [should be] like your |Maarten Litmaath @ VU Amsterdam:
>      toothbrush." (Don Alvarez)      |maart@cs.vu.nl, mcvax!botter!maart

I've worked in many groups where most of the people knew the root
password.  In those groups, I use protection to give a hint about
how I want my files accessed.  Further, I give names which give a
further hint.  Thus, people know that if I've protected something in
my work directory, that's probably the current version and if they
pick it up, they deserve what they get.  However, it's known that my
personal directory is personal stuff and that I consider looking at
that stuff as a violation of my privacy.

There is an element that easier security makes it easier to break in, but
there's also an element that more strenuous security makes it more fun
to break in.  As such, I've always been a fan of weaker security and
very strong administrative action against anyone who breaks the implicit
trust.

Scott