Date: Sun, 9 Sep 2001 11:04:06 -0400 (EDT) From: Brandon Poyner <brandon@thebiz.net> To: <freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG> Subject: Re: really nice FreeBSD security feature.... Message-ID: <Pine.BSI.4.33.0109091059230.18967-100000@mail.neca.com> In-Reply-To: <20010909015540.A49564@xor.obsecurity.org>
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On Sun, 9 Sep 2001, Kris Kennaway wrote: >> There's a big screed by RMS somewhere about how root wants to be free >> and how he hax0red su back in his salad days to allow anyone to su to >> root..I guess that's why Linnex does it. I can't find any trace of it on gnu.org's web site, but searching for "stallman su wheel" on google turns up plenty of hits. > Why GNU su does not support the wheel group (by Richard Stallman) > > Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the > rest. For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to > seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system > and keeping it secret from everyone else. (I was able to thwart this > coup and give power back to the users by patching the kernel, but I > wouldn't know how to do that in Unix.) > > However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone. Under the usual su > mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes > with the ordinary users, he can tell the rest. The wheel group feature > would make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers. > > I'm on the side of the masses, not that of the rulers. If you are > used to supporting the bosses and sysadmins in whatever they do, you > might find this idea strange at first. -- Brandon Lee Poyner, Unix Systems Engineer brandon@thebiz.net BiznessOnline.com, Inc. http://www.BiznessOnline.com/ To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-questions" in the body of the message
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