PuTTY alt-keys (was Re: 16-User Network)

Wed Aug 31 05:36:49 UTC 2011

----- Original Message -----
> From: "Fairlight" <fairlite at fairlite.com>

> Unless someone dumbs down and jails their environment for them, which
> I'm staunchly against for anything except ftp or sftp use.

This is, um, the *filePro* mailing list.

Quick: who on here has ever set up a Unix user to go directly into
a filePro menu?

:-)

> My belief is that if you can't configure a simple terminal emulator, you're
> quite possibly a menace with an operating system a few hundred times as
> complex. All the chmod 0777 monkeys out there haven't done anything but
> reinforce my opinion over the years. There are some notable exceptions,
> but I'm wary of putting non-technical people in front of an actual shell
> prompt.

Yup.  Why I never do it.

> And I've never been a fan of pseudo-jailed environments. I've yet to> find
> one I can't find -some- way out of (including at a bank, who> overlooked
> the fact that WordPerfect had a shell escape buried in it!), and> admins
> place way too much trust in the stupidity of the users they fool into
> thinking their access is limited. Sorry, changing the prompt to look
> like a several-choice menu is -not- security. (Yes, I know a company that
> does this.)

Ha.  :-)

In practice, in 20 years, on well over 500 seats, I *never* had a problem.

Never.

> But I'd never let someone near my own box if they can't even configure
> a PuTTY connection to it. Oh, -hell- no. :)

Strawman.  Wasn't suggesting that you should.

See again the name of this list  ;-)

Cheers,
-- jra
-- 
Jay R. Ashworth                  Baylink                       jra at baylink.com
Designer                     The Things I Think                       RFC 2100
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