Re: Please proofread beep debconf template

[Justin B Rye <jbr@edlug.org.uk>]

Gerfried Fuchs quoted:
> _Choices: usable for all, usable for group audio, usable only for root
> _Description: Install beep as:
>  beep must be run as root since it needs to access the speaker hardware.
>  There are several possibilities to make the program usable:  Either only
>  for root (no suid bit at all), executable only by users of the group
>  audio, or usable for all.
>  .
>  Since each program set as suid root can be a security risk this is not done
>  by default.  However, the program is quite small (~150 lines of code), so it
>  is fairly easy to verify the safety of the code yourself, if you don't
>  trust the package maintainer's judgement.

Well, it's all grammatical and intelligible, but it could do with
rephrasing.  How about something more like this...

  _Choices: usable for all, usable for group audio, usable only for root
  _Description: Install beep as:
   Since beep needs access to the speaker hardware, normal users will not be
   able to use it unless the setuid bit is set. There are three options for its
   permissions:
   -rwsr-xr-x root:audio = setuid root for all users
   -rwsr-xr-- root:audio = setuid root for members of the group "audio"
   -rwxr-xr-x root:audio = non-setuid, and unusable for normal users
   .
   The third option is the default, since any program that grants elevated
   privileges is a potential security risk. However, the program is quite small
   (~150 lines of code), so it is fairly easy to verify the safety of the code
   yourself, if you don't trust the package maintainer's judgement.

-- 
JBR     with qualifications in linguistics, experience as a Debian
	sysadmin, and probably no clue about this particular package