Re: Root privilege (SOLVED)
On Thu, 11 Jan 2007 09:29:44 -0500
hendrik@topoi.pooq.com wrote:
> On Thu, Jan 11, 2007 at 10:06:33AM +0200, Andrei Popescu wrote:
> > On Wed, 10 Jan 2007 17:52:18 -0500
> > cga2000 <cga2000@optonline.net> wrote:
> >
> > > Mind you, and this is not directly related to the above, I
> > > sometimes have this bizarre feeling that much of this awkwardness
> > > we have to deal with -- in X certainly .. but from the linux
> > > console as well, albeit to a lesser extent -- eventually boils
> > > down to the *NIX model not having been designed from the ground
> > > up with security in mind.
> >
> > Huh?
> >
> > > I just cannot see why you should need something extreme such as
> > > root access to install/maintain software.
> >
> > And let users install any malware they get across on the internet
> > just because it popped up a window with "install me"?
>
> I've longed for a distinction between packages that assume root
> priveleges to run and those that do not. The latter should be
> installable by any user; the former should require root permission.
/sbin and /usr/sbin vs. /bin and /usr/bin ? Malware doesn't need root
privileges to do bad things.
> To a first approximation, one could distinguish them by the SUID bit
> on any of their executables.
>
> Of course, there would have to be firther considerations -- the
> packages shoulld have to come from a trusted source, for one thing,
> and be free of conflicts with other packages users might be allowed
> to install.
This will never work. Users will *always* mess it up.
Regards,
Andrei
--
If you can't explain it simply, you don't understand it well enough.
(Albert Einstein)
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