[Off Topic] Re: Linux security

[Derek Broughton]

Michael Richter wrote:

> On 05/05/06, Peter Garrett <peter.garrett at optusnet.com.au> wrote:
>>
>> On Fri, 5 May 2006 13:42:52 +0800
>> "Michael Richter" <ttmrichter at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> > cd /
>> > <enter a string of commands here and, in the process, forget where you
>> are>
>> > rm -fR * .old
>> >
>> > What was that about "sane defaults" and "graceful error recovery" that
>> > someone else was blathering on about again?  There's not so much as a
>> "are
>> > you sure you want to kill your system?"-style error message there.  The
>> > "sane default" is to trash your whole file system.  From a moment's
>> > inattention.
> 
Absolutely true.  I've done it myself (rm -r * /xxx while in /etc - I might
not even have had the excuse of doing a bunch of other stuff and forgetting
where I was).  You might not consider that a sane default, but I think it's
fair to say that most Linux users would object to nag messages every time
they do something potentially damaging on the command line.  Perhaps such a
nag might be acceptable if you tried to recursively delete anything from /,
but I expect that would still encounter much opposition.  That's not to say
that _not_ doing it, _is_ the sane option, but every OS has baggage and imo
this is not as bad as the DOS/Windows implicit assumption that _no_ user
really knows what they're doing.
>>
>> Quite true. Of course if the user concerned is using Ubuntu, and has not
>> enabled a root password, it becomes less likely (not impossible by any
>> means, just less likely).

It's really not any less likely.  
-- 
derek