Path: utzoo!mnetor!uunet!husc6!bu-cs!madd
From: madd@bu-cs.BU.EDU (Jim Frost)
Newsgroups: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Subject: Re: ARC for Unix
Message-ID: <22475@bu-cs.BU.EDU>
Date: 8 May 88 19:48:09 GMT
References: <9209@cisunx.UUCP> <162@falkor.UUCP> <197@ists>
Reply-To: madd@bu-it.bu.edu (Jim Frost)
Followup-To: comp.binaries.ibm.pc.d
Distribution: comp.binaries.ibm.pc
Organization: Boston University Distributed Systems Group
Lines: 55

In article <197@ists> mike@ists (Mike Clarkson) writes:
|In article <162@falkor.UUCP>, heiby@falkor.UUCP (Ron Heiby) writes:
|> Part of the reason why most
|> Unix systems have a C compiler available is so that people can share
|> SOURCE code and compile it for their own systems.  That is why there
|> is no comp.binaries.unix or comp.unix.binaries newsgroup.

No.  MOST of the reason why UNIX systems have a C compiler available
is because the UNIX environment is a development environment, made by
programmers for programming.  It also happens to be convenient to have
the compiler online for the language your system was written in.

As for why there isn't a binaries group for UNIX, it's simply a matter
of heterogenous systems.  UNIX runs on more different kinds of
machines than any other operating system (that I've seen, anyway).
It's just not practical to post binaries.  Besides, nearly all UNIX
systems contain a compiler *because the system was made for program
development* so you're assured high penetration when you distribute
source code.  On PC's, virtually no systems come with a compiler of
any kind, and compilers are generally expensive.  Programmers buy
them, but your average guy doesn't have one.  Binaries have much
higher penetration.

|And besides, no Unix system admin in their right mind would let a binary
|off the net onto their system.  It's one thing for viruses to trash peoples
|PC disks, but *nobody* is going to get at my 1 gigabyte SMD drive.

This is terribly closed-minded.  Why haven't viruses proliferated on
UNIX systems?  Protection, for one thing.  A program generally
requires special permissions to do something really damaging to a
UNIX system.  This is part of why root logins shouldn't have "." in
their path -- you don't want to accidentally give a user program those
types of permissions.  On PC's, there is seldom any kind of protection
at all, and it's usually easy to get around.  It doesn't take a
particularly brilliant hack to write a program to trash a disk when
there is nothing to stop a program from reading or writing the disk
directly.

Another reason is that UNIX systems vary so much that you
just can't be sure of the type of hardware you're dealing with.
You can't be sure what kind of removable storage a UNIX system uses.
Floppy?  Tape?  Removable hard drive?  Optical drive?  Videotape?  Try
to write a virus program that 1) doesn't need to be superuser to have
an effect and 2) understands enough different forms of hardware to be
effective.  It's somewhat tougher than writing a program to stomp on
an unprotected hard drive.  Also, the odds are very poor that anything
written on removable storage on your system will find its way to
another.  It does happen, but not often enough to get good
contamination.

Would I use a binary off the net on my own UNIX system?  Sure.  Would
I ever run it as root?  Not in your lifetime.

jim frost
madd@bu-it.bu.edu