Date   : Wed, 17 Aug 2005 01:19:06 +0100
From   : jgh@... (Jonathan Graham Harston)
Subject: Re: Econet

"BeebMaster" <BeebMaster@...> wrote:
> I don't like Level 4 personally, it seems to me that there is no security
> on it.  In other words it stores all the Econet data in ADFS format in
> a directory on your hard disc so anybody could go in and have a look.
 
Jonathan Graham Harston wrote:
> It's secure if you access it across the network. Like any server
> that you can access from the "console", the console owns
> everything, and so, of course, there is no security there. You
> secure it by locking it in a cupboard.
 
"Ian Wolstenholme" <BBCMailingList@...> wrote:
> I don't agree.  If you go to the Archimedes server running L4
> Econet, you can examine the contents of the Econet area of
> the disc as it is simply stored as files on the hard disc in a separate
> directory.  You can look into that directory in the same way that you
> could look into any other directory on the hard disc drive.
> 
> If you go to the BBC micro server running L3 Econet, you can't
> look into any of the Econet partition as it is beyond the end of the
> hard or floppy disc attached to the machine.  You can't go into the
> disc and look at what Econet users have stored as the data is
> not visible from the server machine.
 
Yes you can. Go to *ANY* machine running a fileserver, *ANY*
filesever, and bypass the file server program and you can bypass
the security and see the users' files. By the very virtue of the
fact that the file server program *itself* needs to be able to get
at those files, it is only the file server program that imposes
any security. Access the disks directly on the machine running the
file server program and you automatically and unavoidably bypass
that security, as you aren't using the security in the *file
server program*. See:
 
=>*FSCat
Level2FS: MASTER (162)
Dir. $
 
!BOOT     WR/R   BOOT      DL/    ECONET    WR/R    LIBRARY  DL/
PASSWORDS /      TELETEXT  DL/
<fx: change disks>
=>*FSCat
Level3FS: MASTER (092)
Dir. $
 
!Boot     WR/R   BOOT      DL/    ECONET    WR/R    LIBRARY  DL/
TELETEXT  DL/    SYST      DL/    UTILS     DL/
<fx: change disks>
=>*FSCat
MDFS: System     (109)
Dir. $
 
!ComDat   WR/R   !Fonts    DL/    'ArmBoot  DL/    Apps      D/     
ArmBoot   DL/    ArthurLib DL/    BackState DL/    Banners   DL/    
Boot      DL/    C         D/     DriveC    LWR/WR FileDBs   DL/    
FS        LR/    incoming  DL/    index/htm r/R    Library   D/     
NoKBD     DL/    outgoing  DL/    Rom       D/     Support   DL/    
SysProgs  DL/    Syst      DL/    Teletext  D/     Utils     D/     
_Make     WR/R   _Update   WR/R   _ZipNew   WR/R   
=>
 
-- 
J.G.Harston - jgh@...                - mdfs.net/User/JGH
Sheffield Boundary Review at http://mdfs.net/User/JGH/Docs/Politics/ParlReview