Paul Farber <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Hmmm, Windows has the ability to write a script that ANYONE can run that
> will delete the disk. Hmmm. Why should a Word Processor EVER have the
> ability to make system calls?
I assume you've deleted vi and emacs from your system? After all, they
allow system calls. Hell, so does ed. pico allows shell escapes. What
*do* you use for an editor?
xdvi supports it because it allows you to do some cool things with
specials. xdvi is hardly a Windows program. If I'm not mistaken,
PostScript interpretors can support the same thing in specials. From the
man page:
-allowshell
(.allowShell) This option enables the shell escape in PostScript
specials. (For security reasons, shell escapes are disabled by
default.) This option should be rarely used; in particular it
should not be used just to uncompress files: that function is
done automatically if the file name ends in .Z, .gz, or .bz2
Shell escapes are always turned off if the -safer option is
used.
> It IS a MS problem, they should not allow any indescriminate user to run
> format or del *.* . IF you don't want a child to shoot themselves,
> don't give them a gun to play with.
> UNIX/Linux has the ability to say.. "Hey, you can't do that!" with a
> simple feature like file permissions and file ownership.
Um, no. rm -rf * will delete all your files in Linux just the same way
that del *.* will on a Microsoft operating system. Windows 95 is a
*single user* operating system, which means that all the files on the disk
are your files if you're sitting in front of the computer. You'll find
that some Linux users are always logged in as root too. This is a
mentality as much as it's a technical design.
> Why hasn't MS followed suit with these basic security precaustions?
Because they're building a single-user operating system. They have
followed suit from the beginning for their *multiuser* operating system,
Windows NT.
If you don't want the user at the console to be considered God, don't use
a single-user operating system. If you're going to bash single-user
operating systems, at least do it equally; Macintoshes are the same way.
It's hardly a Microsoft-specific disease.
--
Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
