On Jan 3, 2008 4:09 PM, Dennis Peterson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> The success of this requires a bit of serendipity as well. If for reasons of
> convenience the new TMPDIR is globally writeable then nothing has been 
> accomplished
> which is why a global TMPDIR declaration is pointless.

Well, yes and no.  Let's take the following case:

1) You're using software which creates then executes a temporary file
as .progname.day-of-month
2) The attacker knows this and has a remote attack to populate this
file in /tmp to give themselves root access
3) You've globally defined TMPDIR to be /tmp/42/
4) Attack fails

Ok, it doesn't help against a local attacker (and then you're in
trouble anyway), but against any remote attack making assumptions
about the location of temporary files it has some value.

Besides, I made no statement about global declarations ;)

-- 
                 Please keep list traffic on the list.

Rob MacGregor
      Whoever fights monsters should see to it that in the process he
        doesn't become a monster.                  Friedrich Nietzsche
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