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Date:      Tue, 28 Mar 2000 16:30:56 +0200 (MET DST)
From:      Ariel Burbaickij <Ariel.Burbaickij@mni.fh-giessen.de>
To:        "Thomas M. Sommers" <tms2@mail.ptd.net>
Cc:        freebsd-questions@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: strange behaviour of chown(due to my lameness almost sure :))
Message-ID:  <Pine.GSO.4.10.10003281620320.820-100000@sun18>
In-Reply-To: <38E07D91.8D91BFB8@mail.ptd.net>

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On Tue, 28 Mar 2000, Thomas M. Sommers wrote:

> Ariel Burbaickij wrote:
> > 
> >   Wait.even the files that are owned by user who intend to change its
> >   ownership?Effictively,giving ownership to someone other over?
> 
> Yes. Suppose I am evil and want to delete all of your files. Normally I
> could not do it, because you are careful and allow only yourself to
> write your files (the permissions are, for example: -rw-r--r--). But if
> I could give you ownership of a file, I could create a shell program
> with the line 'rm -r ~you/*', make it setuid and executable, and give
> you ownership of it. Then if I run it, it will run with your uid, and
> will happily delete all of your files.
> 
> To prevent this and similar security breaches, only root can change file
> ownership.
  Have read man chown meanwhile.It is obvious as described by you.
  Almost any utility/programm/routine can be misused as we have seen and
  present double-edged sword,though
  So from my lame point of view following situation is also possible:
  Two users want to share some files in rather unrestricted manner.
  Unfortunately,they are not in the same group due to whatever reasons so
  as far i can see(not very far indeed)they will have 2 possibilities:
  Holding permissions bits set to 777(not very wise imho) or to have chown
  working for them.As to dangers following could be feasible:
  Maintaining 2 files in every user's home directory .chown_accept and
  .chown_deny.With initial setting of.chown_deny:Deny ALL files from ALL
  ANY size(in case someone just want to ovverrun quotas)and possibility 
  to make policy less restrictive.UNIX is not Bell-Lapadulla system
  so it is not need to pretend it is. 
  
  kind regards,
  Ariel
  

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