From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 From: Enache Adrian To: 9fans@cse.psu.edu Subject: Re: [9fans] x10 Message-ID: <20040408201926.GA1514@ratsnest.hole> References: <20040407204607.GA2551@ratsnest.hole> Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Disposition: inline In-Reply-To: User-Agent: Mutt/1.4i Date: Thu, 8 Apr 2004 23:19:27 +0300 Topicbox-Message-UUID: 56d2098e-eacd-11e9-9e20-41e7f4b1d025 On Wed, Apr 07, 2004 a.d., Geoff Collyer wrote: > Why would you bind /dev/random onto /dev/zero and why would you > consider it a security problem if you did? Likewise for binding an > ordinary file onto /dev/null. What's wrong with enforcing upon a process truerand() returning random numbers and not zero every time ? bind() may dramatically change the meaning of any file operation on Plan 9 - and is itself not constrained by file permissions, etc. Sometimes one may want to turn such a powerful feature off :-) And generally, being able to control with rfork() flags the couple of things Plan 9 still do without reading or writing files seemed to me like a not completely ireasonable idea. Of course, that may not be as useful as I first thought. Regards, Adi