[ale] Linux Distributions

[kaboom at oobleck.net (Chris Ricker)]

On Tue, 17 May 2005, Jim Popovitch wrote:

> On Tue, 2005-05-17 at 14:25 -0400, Chris Ricker wrote:
> > They can't do "sudo mkfs /dev/hda8" (unless you misconfigured sudo).
> 
> Misconfigured? Or just configured for easy use (NOPASSWD: ALL)?

Like I said, misconfigured.

;-)

> > This is ultimately the same reason we don't need anti-virus scanning to 
> > protect Linux desktops. 
> 
> Better re-think that if you value your user data.

Why? Viruses can't propagate if they can't write to executables. The 
status quo (normal users don't run as root, and system executables aren't 
writable by normal users) that you're trying to alter is what's protected 
Unix and Linux from widespread viruses all these years....

>  Which takes more
> time: reinstalling the OS or rebuilding your user data/configs/etc?

That's orthogonal. Backups, not (running || not running) as root, protect 
user data.

later,
chris