Is it possible to hide process args from 'ps -ef'?? (Recap)

[Scott Bennett]

In article <1991Apr24.025417.5182 at casbah.acns.nwu.edu> navarra at casbah.acns.nwu.edu (John 'tms' Navarra) writes:
>In article <z91980 at idunno.Princeton.EDU> subbarao at phoenix (Kartik Subbarao) writes:
>>  [text deleted  --SJB]
>>
>>Secondly, it's really simple to have the program read the "secret"
>>arguments from the tty (maybe even using getpass!), rather than have to have 
>>them passed as arguments.
>
>         Explain this one. If you don't have write access to other people's
> terminals (which most systems don't now a days) how will you get the 'secret'
> argument?

     [X-ray laser on]
     Read what he said again.  He mentioned nothing at all about other
users' terminals.  He said the *program* should read from the tty instead
of looking at *argv[].  In other words, the morons who wrote the data
base program in question should have been roundly chastised by their 
management.  The product should never have been allowed out the door
in a form like that.  The data base program should be fixed.  There is
no need whatsoever to adulterate the operating system to fix a third-
party software vendor's bungling.  The program should *also* turn off
the echo before reading the password.  After all, it *is* a *password*
that the program is requiring.
     [X-ray laser off]
>>
>>
>>In any event, systems programs should not be changed on simple whims like
>>this. It's important that they be functional as they're expected to.

     Precisely.
>>
>>		-Kartik
>
>    [text deleted  --SJB]
>>--
>>internet# rm `df | tail +2 | awk '{ printf "%s/quotas\n",$6}'`
>>
>>subbarao at phoenix.Princeton.EDU -| Internet
>>kartik at silvertone.Princeton.EDU (NeXT mail)  
>>SUBBARAO at PUCC.BITNET			          - Bitnet
>
>
>-- 
>From the Lab of the MaD ScIenTiST:
>      
>navarra at casbah.acns.nwu.edu


                                  Scott Bennett, Comm. ASMELG, CFIAG
                                  Systems Programming
                                  Northern Illinois University
                                  DeKalb, Illinois 60115
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