🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <41nhdo$rek@blackice.winternet.com>, jdege@winternet.com (Jeff
Dege) wrote:

> On 25 Aug 1995 05:05:03 GMT, Hotel California (hotelca@cris.com) wrote:
> : > rmcassid@uci.edu (Robert Cassidy) writes:
> : >
> : > At least Unix has the concept of a separate 'root' login.  
> : 
> : 
> : Wrong.  The Mac has several ways to protect files.  Just because you don't
> : have to log in doesn't mean you can't protect things.  You can get At Ease
> : (Free with all shipping Macs) and then you do have to log in.  
> 
>     But does this assign ownership to files, or does it allow you to do
> anything you like once you're logged in?

Well, it depends on what access privileges are given to the user by the
admin.  If you have go to finder privileges then you can alter anything. 
If you have access to the Open Other menu command then you can change
anything you can open as long as you have saving privileges where the file
is stored.  You can have save privileges to anywhere, your folder, or to
floppies only.  Also you can have access to all the At Ease menus or the
restricted set.  Also if you don't have go to finder or open other
privileges then the only files and programs you have access to are those
the admin put on your At Ease account or that are in your folder or on
your floppy.

> : Or you can
> : do like my school, get a control panel that locks the names positions of
> : files in the finder except on floppies which can't be turned off without a
> : password.  And with this method you don't even have to log off and then
> : log back on again if you don't happen to have logged on a root.  
> 
>     You don't need to logout to login as root.

You don't have to login as anything.  Just supply a password when turning
protection off.  If you want protection back on then you don't even need
to supply a password whereas in unix you'd have to login as non-root.

> : Why
> : should someone have to log in to their own computer?  
> 
>    They shouldn't, if they don't want to.  But there are advantages to
> identifying users, and assigning ownership of every object to a user.

If you are on a system shared by many users each with disk space, yes. 
Other wise it is more trouble than it is worth.

> I get by just fine
> : without having to log on and off and creating an account for everyone who
> : uses the computer.  If you need such security you can get it but if you
> : don't then it's not there taking up disk and RAM space.
> 
>    If your OS doesn't have a way to identify the ownership of a file, then
> no, you _can't_ add it if you need it.  On the other hand, just because it
> does, you don't need to use it.

Have you ever heard of extensions (formerly INITs) or control panels
(formerly CDEVs)?  They can add any functionality to the OS that you
want.  All the security thingies mentioned above are control panels.  Also
there are other ways of obtaining security without having file ownerships.

The whole point of Unix is that back when it was designed (a VERY long
time ago for computers) computers were so expensive that you could only
afford one and everybody and their brother had to use it.  So it has
things like file ownership and login passwords built in.  The whole point
of Mac OS, DOS, and Windows is that personal computers are relativly cheap
so everybody can have one and if you need security you can always add it
on, but if you don't need it then its not there taking up disk or RAM
space.

--
Hotel California
hotelca@cris.com