funny characters in filenames

[Steven M. Haflich]

     All this discussion about allowing/disallowing funny chars in
filenames has missed that sometimes (rarely) one really wants
a funny char in a filename:  for security.  For example,
system administrators at academic sites with limited disk
space can reduce the number of private copies of games by
protecting sources (and even executables) behind `untypable'
pathnames.  It doesn't work against real gurus, but it can
make a big difference.  Depending on the uniformity and
baudrate of the local terminals, a filename with a CURSOR_UP
at the end of a filename can be essentially *invisible* to
many forms of the ls command (alas, it was so on V7, but not
so on 4.1, etc.).
     The above may seem somewhat frivolous, but I could also imagine
similarly protecting a cron-invoked security demon (you know, one
of those things that searches for strange setuid files, etc)  behind
such protection.  Why make it easy?
     No, I don't use this method myself, but I have seen it used elsewhere.
				Steve Haflich, ...!genrad!mit-eddie!smh