Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP
Posting-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site linus.UUCP
Path: utzoo!linus!smk
From: smk@linus.UUCP (Steven M. Kramer)
Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards
Subject: Re: Mail security
Message-ID: <26886@linus.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 15-Jun-83 08:00:04 EDT
Article-I.D.: linus.26886
Posted: Wed Jun 15 08:00:04 1983
Date-Received: Thu, 16-Jun-83 06:42:47 EDT
References: <2095@sri-arpa.UUCP>
Organization: MITRE Corp., Bedford MA
Lines: 13

I was going to stay out of this argument, but now I can't resist.
The 'readability' of a mail file is a compromise of security (if
such things are security-relevant things on your system).  
The ability of someone to rm the mail file is not a loss of security
but rather a loss of data integrity.
	To fix the security problem -- make MAILMODE ~600.
	To fix the integrity problem, make the mail dir 755 (root)
	and define the thing that doesn't remove mail when all read
	(because ucbmail is not setuid).
-- 
--steve kramer
	{allegra,genrad,ihnp4,utzoo,philabs,uw-beaver}!linus!smk	(UUCP)
	linus!smk@mitre-bedford						(ARPA)