Re: More desktop security thoughts (was Re: GNOME privilege library)

[Ghee Teo <Ghee Teo Sun COM>]

Larry,

   I think your consultant friend is telling you a Monday morning joke:
....

He rebooted the system into single user and took a look.  Nearly all
files and file systems were missing.

....

"Oh, you know - the usr directory - we don't have any users on the system.  The tmp
directory, and there was a really big weird file called vmunix that was taking up a lot
of disk space."

   But it is a good story :)

-Ghee

Larry W. Virden wrote:

> From: Havoc Pennington <hp redhat com>
>
>  
>
> > The only time end users need the root password is when we have a
> > technology bug that makes capabilities insufficiently fine-grained to
> > properly say "users can do X, but not Y"
> >    
>
> Here's a story I was told by a friend who is a consultant.
>
> A company paid him to set up a Unix system for them to run real time
> software that ran some machinery.
>
> One day, soon after he had turned things over to them, he got a 
> panicy phone call saying the system no longer ran.  He asked about
> the symptoms, and the reply was that they could not log into the
> system.
>
> He drops by the site, and sure enough, the users could not get
> into the system to get it going.
>
> He rebooted the system into single user and took a look.  Nearly all
> files and file systems were missing.
>
> He reloads the system, and then asks the owner what happened.
>
> The owner's reply - "I don't know.  Yesterday I was just cleaning up the system,
> and everything seemed to be okay."
>
> "Cleaning up the system?"
>
> "Yes, you know - deleting the unnecessary files, etc."
>
> "What unnecessary files?"
>
> "Oh, there were just all sorts of files that were just cluttering up things.  I was
> deleting all the stuff that was unrelated to the system."
>
> "Like what?"
>
> "Oh, you know - the usr directory - we don't have any users on the system.  The tmp
> directory, and there was a really big weird file called vmunix that was taking up a lot
> of disk space."
>
> Did the above _really_ happen?  Shrug.  I wasn't the one telling the story.
> I assume that the person telling me that it happened to him was telling me the
> truth.
>
> But, with every user having the ability to do what every they want, the ability to
> do damage out of ignorance or by mistake must never be underestimated...
>