Re: from a.out to running the darned thing.

[Kent West <westk@acu.edu>]

Travis Crump wrote:

> I understand . since . could potentially be an insecure directory like 
> /tmp, but what is wrong with ~/bin?  If an attacker is able to place a 
> binary in ~/bin doesn't he already have the permissions to do "rm -rf 
> ~" himself?

No, "~/bin" is not the same as "/bin". "~/bin" is the current user's 
directory. Still, I'm not sure that "~/bin" represents a threat, because 
the bad guy's "~/bin" won't be in root's path, and the bad guy 
presumably won't be able to put a bad file in root's "~/bin", which may 
be what you're saying above.

But having "." in one's path is definitely risky.

--
Kent