Protecting against downloads

[John Temples]

In article <3952 at quiche.cs.mcgill.ca> mikey at quiche.cs.mcgill.ca (Michael GALLOP) writes:
>Exactly, what you can do is:
>chmod 711 /usr/bin/* 
>Which produces (I think :-)) rwx--x--x on every file in /usr/bin

This fails on things like 286 binaries that you have to have read
permission in order to execute on System V/386.

I don't understand why there's any reason to be concerned about this,
anyway.  Why should the sysop be held responsible for theft by
others?  This seems no different than someone sneaking into my office
when I'm not there and stealing a piece of copyrighted software.  It
would be like the police arresting ME after my house got robbed,
saying it was my fault for leaving the door unlocked!

Perhaps a signon message like "anything that is not in /usr/local
should be assumed to be copyrighted and not available for download"
would be adequate.  As long as the sysop is not promoting theft
("Welcome new users!  FREE UNIX operating system programs here for
the downloading!"), I can't imagine the copyright police being able
to hold anything against you.
-- 
John W. Temples -- john at jwt.UUCP (uunet!jwt!john)