On Fri, 30 Aug 2002, Richard Earnshaw wrote:

> > Johnny Billquist wrote:
> > > A big danger is accidental overwriting.
> > Overwriting of /rescue? Uhm...
> > Yes, that's possible.
> > 
> 
> So is overwriting of /bin/sh with /bin/rm.
> 
> These are all rather pointless mind games, they don't really make anything 
> more or less safe.

You are oversimplifying things. I'm not talking about stupid user
overwriting a file with something else (even though that, too, is a
possibility). I'm talking about corrupt file systems, which individual
blocks within a file might be overwritten.

And in both cases, two different files are more robust than a single
file. It's the same story as with everything depending on libc at runtime
(or any other single point of failure).

If you don't agree that a single point of failure makes things less safe
I'm sure NASA would be interested in hearing about your deductive
skills. :-)

	Johnny

Johnny Billquist                  || "I'm on a bus
                                  ||  on a psychedelic trip
email: bqt@update.uu.se           ||  Reading murder books
pdp is alive!                     ||  tryin' to stay hip" - B. Idol