🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <9210130527.AA02711@mole.gnu.ai.mit.edu>, rms@gnu.ai.mit.edu (Richard Stallman) writes:
|> What does it mean to resist fascism?
|> 
|> Sometimes a few of the users try to hold total power over all the
|> rest.  For example, in 1984, a few users at the MIT AI lab decided to
|> seize power by changing the operator password on the Twenex system and
|> keeping it secret from everyone else.  (I was able to thwart this coup
|> and give power back to the users by patching the kernel, but I
|> wouldn't know how to do that in Unix.)
|> 
|> However, occasionally the rulers do tell someone.  Under the usual su
|> mechanism, once someone learns the root password who sympathizes with
|> the ordinary users, he can tell the rest.  The "wheel group" feature
|> would make this impossible, and thus cement the power of the rulers.
|> 
[ ... ]

If this someone knows the root password, she or he will usually have the power
to change the members in the wheel group, especially to delete every member
in it. Then everyone is allowed to su to root.
So this is almost pointless.

Of course, it is a matter of policy to code su one way or the other. I'd just
be grateful if you wouldn't call me fascist for supporting the security
topic.

Malte