Either /root as 755 is a problem, and everyone should run around 'chmod 700 root'-ing, or 755 is not a problem, and this discussion is dumb. There is no middle ground where a new installation should ask - if it's not dangerous, don't ask. If it /is/ dangerous, don't ask. It's the dumb users you're trying to protect, and you shouldn't ask dumb users dumb questions.
If 755 root were a problem, I'd expect to find it mentioned in the securing-debian-howto. It's not, at least on my grep for "root" and "permission". There's no bug against harden-doc, which is the package containing the howto, or against harden, which is the source package. I assume that the rest of the harden packages don't change permissions or warn about /root. I would much prefer that the community started a discussion about making security the default on any of the /actual/ security issues listed in the securing-debian-howto, for example, disabling remote root login, or making sure the system is kept up-to-date with security patches. In the interest of brevity, Mike Stone: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2002/debian-devel-200207/msg00514.html Craig Sanders: http://lists.debian.org/debian-devel/2000/debian-devel-200011/msg00811.html Finally: http://bugs.debian.org/76771 thanks, -neil Now back to your regularly scheduled "I just noticed I can remove a file I don't have write permission on" security panic.