From owner-freebsd-questions Wed Nov 18 11:48:18 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id LAA27076 for freebsd-questions-outgoing; Wed, 18 Nov 1998 11:48:18 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from kakapo.pinnacle.co.nz (pinsoft.internet.co.nz [202.37.141.181]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id LAA27051 for ; Wed, 18 Nov 1998 11:48:11 -0800 (PST) (envelope-from jonc@pinnacle.co.nz) Received: from kiwi.pinnacle.co.nz (kiwi.pinnacle.co.nz [202.37.163.2]) by kakapo.pinnacle.co.nz (8.8.8/8.8.8) with SMTP id IAA18195; Thu, 19 Nov 1998 08:45:55 +1300 (NZDT) (envelope-from jonc@pinnacle.co.nz) Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 08:45:56 +1300 (NZDT) From: Jonathan Chen To: Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai cc: freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG, G578@ix.netcom.com Subject: Re: C executables In-Reply-To: Message-ID: MIME-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: TEXT/PLAIN; charset=US-ASCII Sender: owner-freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.ORG On Wed, 18 Nov 1998, Jeroen Ruigrok/Asmodai wrote: > On 18-Nov-98 Jonathan Chen wrote: > > > > If you want to include the current directory, you'll have to modify > > your startup script for your shell (.login/.profile/.bashrc/etc) to > > include the current directory for PATH > > And by doing that ye start the slow descent into security compromise. If one > would have . in their PATH ye are risking to faster execute maliscious code > than by doing ./name. It all comes down to the compromise between security and convenience. Having the current directory in PATH as root is *ALWAYS* a bad idea, but as a std. user is mostly fine (and very convenient) if you're developing applications; and if you ever run a trojan (what were you doing peeking into other people's directories?), the only person you'd affect is yourself - system security is *not* compromised. Jonathan Chen ---------------------------------------------------------------------- The human mind ordinarily operates at only ten percent of its capacity -- the rest is overhead for the operating system. To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message