Try running e.g. "ifconfig eth0 192.168.3.2" as a non-root user, it will fail with some operation not permitted errors. It's ok for most users to read the data that ifconfig shows (and they can obtain it in other ways), although it's not useful enough for it to be needed on $PATH.
pgpMj3CcV9BIT.pgp
Description: PGP signature
