If there is no origianl message included in theis rely, i apologize...reply is doing funny things today. Anyway, this is a reply to etharp's last post:
Yes, the default mandrake security settings are far more secure than windoze, or most other OS's. Not only can joe and joeanne not install systemwide programs without root authority, being able to read eachother's files does not give them permission to modify each other's files. in windoze, you can usually modify any file you can see, unless the owner has specifically locked it. So the only "security" issue here relates to personal privacy and possibly sensitive information, not to system security. But then if you're worried about national security or industrial espionage--or simply making sure your coworkers don't find out that your "made from scratch" cookies reall come out of a Betty Crocker box--you should probably make yourself familiar with chmod and some encryption programs, anyway. Furthermore, a+rx acces has been the standard on most Unices I've dealt with . . . that, or giving all users a common GID. Why? I don't know, although I suspect it may be a holdover days of slower networking and pre-X network terminals. It's very easy to share files when you can just tell a person where a file is, and they can go copy it for themself. Patiularly when pre-mime e-mail and other transport protocals required you to tar. shar, and/or uuencode binary files to send them to other users. In fact, my first Unix reference for the Umich system when I was an undergrad recommended using cp or ln (preferrably ln) to grap programs you wanted/needed from friends' directories instead of bugging the sysadmin to install software for you. And another thought: if you want to share a file with a group, the other members of the group (potentially anyone on the system) all need access to the entire path, unless the admin does something like set up hardlinks from ~/share to /usr/share/[username]_public, or something. Anyway, this very long message was vasically to say that, while there are many times you may want stronger security for one reason or another, the default msec values look pretty good to me. Hope this helps, --jay _____________________________________________________________ Save rainforest! Redjellyfish Long Distance works just like any other long distance provider and is very competitively priced. In addition, you�ll save rainforest every time you make a long distance call! To learn more visit: http://www.redjellyfish.com/longdistance
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