From mboxrd@z Thu Jan 1 00:00:00 1970 X-Spam-Checker-Version: SpamAssassin 3.4.4 (2020-01-24) on polar.synack.me X-Spam-Level: X-Spam-Status: No, score=-1.9 required=5.0 tests=BAYES_00 autolearn=ham autolearn_force=no version=3.4.4 X-Google-Language: ENGLISH,ASCII-7-bit X-Google-Thread: 103376,6482d0ae6dcb1b4c X-Google-Attributes: gid103376,public X-Google-ArrivalTime: 2002-10-04 13:51:24 PST Path: archiver1.google.com!news1.google.com!newsfeed.stanford.edu!newsfeed.gamma.ru!Gamma.RU!news.algonet.se!algonet!news2.tninet.se!not-for-mail From: Stefan Skoglund Newsgroups: comp.lang.ada Subject: Re: if file exist Date: Fri, 04 Oct 2002 22:56:49 +0200 Organization: Telenordia/Algonet Message-ID: <3D9E0091.18314F2E@ebox.tninet.se> References: <3d9245da.259420486@news.cis.dfn.de> <3D933A6B.5000105@cogeco.ca> <8db3d6c8.0209270247.5bf07ae5@posting.google.com> <3D94D418.5010604@attbi.com> NNTP-Posting-Host: sdu77-220.ppp.algonet.se Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit X-Trace: green.tninet.se 1033764734 12744 195.163.220.77 (4 Oct 2002 20:52:14 GMT) X-Complaints-To: abuse@telenordia.se NNTP-Posting-Date: Fri, 4 Oct 2002 20:52:14 +0000 (UTC) X-Mailer: Mozilla 4.72 [en] (Win95; I) X-Accept-Language: sv,en,en-US Xref: archiver1.google.com comp.lang.ada:29526 Date: 2002-10-04T22:56:49+02:00 List-Id: Mark Biggar wrote: > No, from a computer security point of view, this is exactly what is > wanted. A user should see absolutely no difference between "file does > not exist" and "you don't have permission to see the file". Otherwise, > you have introduced a covert information channel. Hrmm, rather flimsy security in that case. Security-by-obscurity doesn't work. In that case a simple 'ls filename' on unix will give a not enough permissions message 'ls `dirname filename`' will tell if we are having a directory permissions problem.