[ale] Sunday 05-22-05 6PM RUN-AS-ROOT CHALLENGE

[Jim Popovitch]

I propose that we take this one step further and have Geoff, Michael,
and George come to the next ALE intown meeting and show us their l33t
s41lz in realtime in front of an audience.  I'll bring the switch and
network cables so that we can do this on a private network, thus
preventing their omnipotent powers from bringing down the whole
Internet.  :-)

Any takers for a face-to-face showdown?

-Jim P.

On Thu, 2005-05-19 at 15:06 -0500, ChangingLINKS.com wrote:
> > A regular user can't write to the operating system's protected areas, or
> > kill off utilities that are used by the system, or any of that type of
> > crap.  If people in general ran as regular users, they wouldn't need to
> > lose their stuff all of the time.  They might be forced to lose it when
> > the hard disk drive dies or something like that, but not becuase of a
> > vulnerability that they would otherwise not needed to try to work around
> > becuase they were running as a regular user.  You want to make the
> > entire argument about data, well there you go.  There are reasons that
> > running as root can help to demolish your data, and yet again, you will
> > overlook and ignore them, no?
> >
> >  - Mike
> 
> I lost more data when I ran as a user. In fact, the only data I have ever lost 
> was during the time that I ran as a user. One thing that I think your camp is 
> overlooking is the fact that someone (like me) can run as root AND still 
> implement other features in the OS to protect from viruses, data loss and the 
> like.
> 
> THAT is why I put forth the challenge. To prove that I can run as root AND 
> brush off the problems that your camp poses - including ruining "the World"
> 
> Hope you all are backing out . . . .