Security (was Re SUMMARY: C Compiler Predefined Manifest Definitions)

[Tom Bannon]

In article <105269 at convex.convex.com> tchrist at convex.COM (Tom Christiansen)
> In article <595 at wattres.UUCP> steve at wattres.UUCP (Steve Watt) writes:
> |Which brings up what I consider to be a strange point:  Why is it that most
> |*NIX vendors ship systems with all the files in /bin and /usr/bin world-
> |readable?  It seems to me that they only need to be world-executable...

> Absurd.  If you are relying about people not knowing about something
> for your security, than you've really no security at all.  

> But the point of it's being annoying secondary to the fact that it
> just doesn't make sense to rely upon ignorance to protect you.

> Security through obscurity isn't.


As well as From: peter at ficc.ferranti.com (Peter da Silva)
> Security through obscurity is no security at all.

Hmmm...  I guess encryption is out then, being as it relies on the
ignorance of the key.  Ignorance, the absence of knowledge, seems to 
play a fundamental role in security.  Even in Zero-knowledge proofs
if I understand them correctly.  You both seem to hold a different
viewpoint however.  Could you elaborate?


tchrist at convex.COM (Tom Christiansen):
> An unreadable binary is just annoying.  You can't run what or strings 
> on it.  You can't adb it for your core dumps.  

A good point.  Perhaps this points out a problem with what, strings,
and adb, i.e., the inability to read binaries that have restricted
read permission.  Whether there is a good general solution (setuid??) for
this problem under Unix I don't know however.  I would certainly like
to hear about any if there were.

Tom 

bannon at csc.ti.com