casey@admin.cognet.ucla.edu (Casey Leedom) (09/06/88)
In article <8809051853.AA03917@mailgw.cc.umich.edu> rees@caen.engin.umich.edu (Jim Rees) writes: > I'd like to take this opportunity to flame a bit on the issue of "security." > ... Right. And what do you do about accidents? Programs which go apeshit? It's a question of pragmatics. You don't want novice users accidentally wiping out your work stations. You'll spend your life in maintenance. Just the maintenance load alone justifies some level of security. Granted, Aegis as Unis, will never pass the higher levels of the DoD security handbook (and to those of you who would argue that point, I'll simply respond that if you try to push them through the validation suites what you end up with won't be Aegis or Unix). But this doesn't mean you toss the entire concept. The goal is to make the system as bullet proof as possible without inconveniencing users inordinately. Your metric for what's too much inconvenience may be different from mine. But don't flame because people want to *try* to maintain as stable a system as they can. And certainly don't advocate removing the ability to set things up in a more secure manner. Remember, if you have no mechanisms for security you have no choices. If you do have some mechanisms for security, you can chose to apply them or not. Casey