Re: Idea for gnome e-mail client

[Alan Shutko <ats acm org>]

Peter Williams <peter@newton.cx> writes:

> We were talking about this on balsa-list... basically, since
> we're on multiuser systems, unless you're running your mail client
> as root, you can't do too much damage to your system.

That's a really limited way to look at it.  Look at the most recent
email problems:

* Most damage done not to the system, but to user data

* Did not require root-like permissions.  AFAIK, they worked perfectly
  well on NT as well as Win 9x.

Furthermore, look at the impact of possible damages.  If an exploit
destroyed all system files and left all user files, the cost of the
damage would be the time reinstalling the system.  What's that, a day?
OTOH, destroy all user files (or worse, modify user files in a subtle
way) and the sky is the limit.  Suddenly, your company is losing
hundreds of thousands of dollars because your price database was
changed, or your bids were changed so they're a factor of ten less.

In short, user data is what users care about, and user data is the
_only_ reason to have a computer in the first place.  

-- 
Alan Shutko <ats@acm.org> - In a variety of flavors!
188 days, 21 hours, 18 minutes, 34 seconds till we run away.
People usually get what's coming to them ... unless it's been mailed.