Security and $PATH

[bormanp at stolaf.UUCP]

	As to having the current directory searched first in the PATH.

	Here at St. Olaf this is the default.  As super-user this is
	not so good, so we switch to current directory last.  Why not
	make this the default?  Simple, as system programmers, we under
	stand about paths and such things, we know that if we write a
	program called 'mail', we must access it as './mail'.  Try telling
	that to 3,000 students, most of them new users.  They don't know
	what is out there, all they know is that they wrote a program
	called 'mail' which should be thier programming assignment, and
	when they run it, they can't imagine where all that other garbage
	came from.  If you are paranoid, you may change it for yourself.

				Paul R Borman
				St. Olaf College
				ihnp4!stolaf!bormanp