On Tue, 25 Jan 2005 23:08:06 GMT, [EMAIL PROTECTED] (Cameron Laird) wrote: >In article <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, >Terry Reedy <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > . > . > . >>worrying about Python security seems superfluous. Why worry, for instance, >>about os.unlink when the user can just do the same much easier in a text or >>gui shell? > . > . > . >It's an apt question--and one with several answers. I'll >hint at the range by observing that part of security has >to do with prevention not of malicious acts, but of common >mistakes. I entirely agree with you that it's crucial to >think of wider context, and whether a particular choice's >costs are worth its benefits.
As long as we include the cost of treating adults as children, and take it seriously as the kind of cost it is, I'm OK. I think Terry's point covers a wide range of the real world situations. Though certainly not all. My "real" life is in the mid-market business world, not as a geometry software developer. And I see a sort of hysteria descending, in this realm on this subject. Of theY2k ilk, but with actually, it seems to me, less substance. Family businesses out on the limb, as a business, in a myriad of ways - because they are after all in business, focusing on remote scenarios because they are somehow becoming convinced that is what business people do (they don't), and demoralizing folks in the process. Folks who know that if they wanted to hurt this business they could have done so a hundred times in a hundred ways over the years. But it wouldn't be by screwing with their computer system because they wouldn't know how. So isn't it funny that is what the boss is so concerned about - all of a sudden? (They always knew they were smarter then him. More proof) Art -- http://mail.python.org/mailman/listinfo/python-list
