On Fri, Aug 29, 2025 at 04:27:04PM -0500, Aaron Rainbolt wrote:
> Control: severity -1 serious

The severity of a bug is under discretion of the package maintainer, 
unless being overridden by a delegate. AFAICT you are neither, so 
please stop changing the bug severity.

> On Fri, 29 Aug 2025 23:03:37 +0200
> Chris Hofstaedtler <[email protected]> wrote:
> 
> > Control: severity -1 wishlist
> > 
> > On Fri, Aug 29, 2025 at 03:33:09PM -0500, Aaron Rainbolt wrote:
> > > `write` and `msg` are both parts of POSIX as explained earlier  
> > 
> > write and mesg were removed due to security reasons. This part of 
> > POSIX is inherently insecure and unfixable.
> > 
> > We're not gonna turn them back on.
> > 
> The inherently insecure, unfixable security issues were remediated by
> disabling the SGID bit on the executables.

They are not. Running 'mesg y' reopens the security hole ('write' 
being only one of the tools that could be used). For trixie I tried 
to have the defaults always be the equivalent of 'mesg n', or 
better.

I consider write, mesg to be legacy interfaces. On a typical 
install, they are purely dead weight.

I forgot if write even -works- on a default install, ISTR the answer 
is 'no' (even after 'mesg y'). IIRC wall is also challenged on the 
default install, but I opted to keep it for the sake of non-default 
installs (sysvinit, etc). 

I truly believe we are better off without these tools. I doubt 
policy confines us to be a POSIX-compliant distro, and I would also 
expect us to not be at any time. Bringing these tools back brings us 
- from my PoV - nothing.

I also think your comment comparing these tools with other tools 
to be an incorrect comparison. write/mesg/wall had a very small 
usecase; ls is used by a lot more people. If ls would be mostly 
useless on a default/typical install, it could also go away.

Chris

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