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* LUG meet on 12 Jan. 2003 @ VJTI
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On Tue, 7 Jan 2003 12:28:42 +0530 (IST)
Nikhil Joshi wrote:
>
>AFAIK 386 gives you the reqd previlege levels
If you're talking of the protected and unprotected modes of
operation in ix86 CPUs, the last I heard, Linux kernel operates
entirely in protected mode. AFAIK, none of the modern OSes use
that feature - someone please check this and correct me if I'm
wrong.
>Now how is kernel to decide (if it had powers/facility) whether
>program is virus or not?
>
>e.g. a simple shell script like
>
>rm -rf * or
>cat < /dev/null > *.txt
^^
Ambiguous redirect - won't work
>maybe useful for someone or virus for others
Kernel doesn't decide whether a script is a virus or not. All it
checks is whether a process is authorized to do what it's trying
to do. This itself goes a long way in keeping things secure. And
it goes beyond simple deletion of files and formatting of disks.
--
Tahir Hashmi (VSE, NCST)
http://staff.ncst.ernet.in/tahir
tahir AT ncst DOT ernet DOT in
We, the rest of humanity, wish GNU luck and Godspeed
--
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