Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Wed, 8 Aug 2001 17:39:47 -0500
From:      Alfred Perlstein <bright@mu.org>
To:        David G Andersen <danderse@cs.utah.edu>
Cc:        Yar Tikhiy <yar@FreeBSD.ORG>, security@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: finger/fingerd & home directory permissions
Message-ID:  <20010808173947.I85642@elvis.mu.org>
In-Reply-To: <200108082235.f78MZ2p10632@faith.cs.utah.edu>; from danderse@cs.utah.edu on Wed, Aug 08, 2001 at 04:35:02PM -0600
References:  <20010809020831.B44660@comp.chem.msu.su> <200108082235.f78MZ2p10632@faith.cs.utah.edu>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
* David G Andersen <danderse@cs.utah.edu> [010808 17:36] wrote:
> Lo and behold, Yar Tikhiy once said:
> > 
> > In the case of local access, it's no problem, since anyone may read
> > /etc/passwd directly. OTOH, letting remote folks peek at user
> > information even if the user wants to hide himself is a bad thing.
> > 
> > The issue I'd like to submit to discussion is what way to choose:
> > 
> > a) Add a command-line option to finger(1) and fingerd(8) telling
> >    them not to reveal user information if the user's homedir is
> >    protected.
> > 
> > b) Similar to a), but hide such users by default.
> > 
> > c) Don't bother at all :-)
> > 
> > Personally, I'd prefer b) since it's most secure and seems to break
> > nothing. Do I overlook any complications?
> 
>   Yes - it breaks the semantics of the existing fingerds that
> people are used to.  It's a gratuitious change with little benefit
> that would simply confuse people who have a reasonable expectation
> about what the default behavior of 'finger' should be.  Don't do (b).

Actually, I'd prefer (b) if it was a command line option.

ie, not the default.

-- 
-Alfred Perlstein [alfred@freebsd.org]
Ok, who wrote this damn function called '??'?
And why do my programs keep crashing in it?

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-security" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?20010808173947.I85642>