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Date:      Thu, 16 Apr 1998 22:19:21 -0700 (PDT)
From:      dima@best.net (Dima Ruban)
To:        mph@pobox.com (Matthew Hunt)
Cc:        dima@best.net, stable@FreeBSD.ORG, freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: kernel permissions
Message-ID:  <199804170519.WAA12540@burka.rdy.com>
In-Reply-To: <19980417005408.08278@mph124.rh.psu.edu> from Matthew Hunt at "Apr 17, 98 00:54:08 am"

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Matthew Hunt writes:
> On Thu, Apr 16, 1998 at 08:40:22PM -0700, Dima Ruban wrote:
> 
> > 1. Debugging symbols and symbol table		- user doesn't need that.
> > 2. Possible kernel configuration		- questionable.
> > 3. Kernel namelist				- user doesn't need that.
> > 4. Kernel copy with possible commercial stuff	- user doesn't need that.
> > 5. Kernel copy with possible restricted/crypto	- user doesn't need that.
> 
> My complaint, and I think the general complaint of people disagreeing
> with you, is that you are not setting policy at your site, you are
> setting policy on all FreeBSD boxes, as-shipped.

It's not about setting policy. It's about being reasonable.

> Why are you in a position to decide what users, at thousands of sites
> besides your own, do or do not need to know?  Many of the arguments
> you have made could be applied to making /bin/ls mode 111 as well,
> since nobody *needs* to look at that.

Right. The only difference is - no harm could be done with being able to
read /bin/ls (or possible bad things)

> There is a heritage, or intertia, that says we should keep things like
> they are, unless there is a clear reason to do otherwise.  You,

What heritage? You mean the amount of people what don't want this change?
I can tell you that more people agreed with me in either private email
or responding to the mailing list than disagree.

> therefore, are the one in the position to justify the change, and it
> does not seem to me like you have done so.

Again. There's a difference between "potential problem" and "security hole".
This is not a security hole, but a potential problem (theoretically
possible even). If this doesn't break anything, why in the hell
shouldn't we have it?
"Don't fix that ain't broke" is not an answer.

> 
> My $0.02.

I think, I've already went over 10 bucks :-)

> 
> -- 
> Matthew Hunt <mph@pobox.com> * Stay close to the Vorlon.
> http://mph124.rh.psu.edu/~mph/pgp.key for PGP public key 0x67203349.
> 

-- dima

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