From: utzoo!decvax!harpo!esquire!nrh
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Title: Re: su and suid compared
Article-I.D.: esquire.377
Posted: Tue Aug  3 03:50:28 1982
Received: Wed Aug  4 01:02:27 1982
References: purdue.318

Actually, I thought dmr's response quite appropriate, although I sure
would not have wanted to be in Mark's shoes.  Personalities aside,
dmr was right:  If there ever was a hack-and-a-half, the /dev/mem
scribbler is it.  

One can sympathize with the desire for a quick (is that REALLY important
enough?) and context-maintaining (that is important!) method for becoming su.

Perhaps the problem of how to maintain a program's "state" (c-shell history
and variables)  should be attacked.  After all, it is just an accident that
the uid is so easy to change.  Changing the uid in /dev/mem is the sort
of thing a programmer's soul suffers for in the afterlife.