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# Peculiar security problem

- Date: Mon, 15 May 1995 09:08:52 PDT
- From:
- Cc: MOO-Cows@parc.xerox.com
- Content-Length: 1970
- Content-Type: text
- In-Reply-To: <199505141325.IAA03895@stcm.com> (message from Andy Selle on Sun, 14 May 1995 08:25:40 -0500 (CDT))

    > From: Andy Selle <andy@stcm.com>
    > Date: Sun, 14 May 1995 08:25:40 -0500 (CDT)

    > > > Date: Sat, 13 May 95 17:31:16 -0800
    > > > From: Alex Stewart <riche@crl.com>
    > >
    > > > Listen, morons.  [...]

    > > > everyone calling it a bug and posting idiotic "solutions" [...]

    > > > THIS IS HOW GUEST ACCOUNTS
    > > > WORK.
    > >
    > > And it's poor design.

    > It isn't a poor design.  It is so that if the password property gets
    > accidently set to a non string value the person is still able to login.

    While I see the utiltity of that design, I don't want that particular
    safety net.  I think there are two camps here: those who think the
    password system should "fail open", and those who think it should
    "fail closed".

    > Without this feature there could be bad results.  Say you are the arch
    > wizard of  a MOO and there are no other wizards.  Say you have a program
    > that accidently sets the password property to a list.  You can't login.

    ... without killing the MOO and editting the DB by hand.  I would make
    that tradeoff to keep the password system from failing open.

    > Also, if you don't like something you can
    > change it, but don't go around telling everyone it is stupid.

    I'm sorry if my words "poor design" were considered insulting to
    someone on a personal level.  It was not my intention.

    I called it "poor design" because I thought it wasn't self documenting
    code (i.e., I saw no "candidate in children($guest)" anywhere in the
    code) and because the failure mode is to widen access rather than
    restrict it.

    > This is not meant to be a flame.

    Thanks.  I'm also trying to keep the signal-to-noise ratio as high as
    possible.
    --
    Francis Litterio             franl@centerline.com
    02 37 DF 6C 66 43 CD 2C      http://draco.centerline.com:8080/~franl/
    10 C8 B5 8B 57 34 F3 21      PGP-encrypted email preferred

    "Those that give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary
     safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." -- Benjamin Franklin (1773)

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