silver (04/13/83)
An anonymous benefactor sent me the REAL answer. I know you've all been waiting anxiously, so, without further ado, I quote: "mknod(1m) checks getuid() == 0 because apparently at one time non- superusers could not create FIFO's, so the mknod utility ran set-UID root." More evidence of the half-a**edness of the implementation of a really full-a**ed concept (i.e., UN*X).