Root access with python

[Erik Max Francis]

Jim Dennis wrote:

>   As for your overall "advice."  It's of little value to tell
>   someone: "don't do that" without offering any suggestion about
>   what he or she SHOULD try.
> 
>   Whenever discussing computer system security I avoid
>   proscriptive pronouncements like: "you can't do that" or
>   "no one should ..."

You have a point, but it is still the case that there _are_ solutions
and approaches which are so ill-advised that you are better off stopping
them in their tracks before they go any further down the roads.  Some
approaches are so bad -- i.e., they have caused endless problems over
the years -- that an expert, much less a novice, should avoid them like
the plague.  I'd say setuid scripts is pretty much up there.

A better approach to just, "Don't do that," would be to discourage the
current approach by suggesting that they go back to basics -- instead of
asking how to do the approach they've come to, ask them what fundamental
problem they're trying to solve.

-- 
 Erik Max Francis / max at alcyone.com / http://www.alcyone.com/max/
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