[Python-Dev] Ext4 data loss

[Zvezdan Petkovic]

On Mar 12, 2009, at 3:15 PM, Martin v. Löwis wrote:
> You still wouldn't use the tempfile module in that case. Instead, you
> would create a regular file, with the name base on the name of the
> important file.

If the file is *really* important, you actually want to use a  
temporary, randomly chosen, *unpredictable* name.

Think about the security implications of a file name that is in  
advance known to an attacker as well as the fact that the said file  
will replace an *important* system file.

See the details in any man page on mkstemp() and why it was introduced  
to replace a predictable mktemp().  Also notice that even mktemp() is  
better then what you proposed above.

Of course, the above are C functions.  I don't think that Python  
programming is immune from such security considerations either.

	Zvezdan