Worm/Passwords (actuall alternate rm programs)

[Steve Harris]

In article <8113 at bloom-beacon.MIT.EDU> jik at athena.mit.edu (Jonathan I. Kamens) writes:
>...I am in the process of designing for Project Athena a suite of
>file-deletion utilities which allow for file recovery ...

Replacing rm (or supplying an alternative "delete" with "undelete"
capability) is a useful task.  However, it only goes part way.  There
are so many other ways to clobber files (redirection, ":w" in vi, "of="
in dd, etc.).

The extreme in the opposite direction is exemplified by VMS/TOPS-20/
TENEX(??) where files have generation numbers -- you see only the most
recent generation(s), but the older copies do not go away until:
    (a)	you logout,
    (b)	you explicitly "expunge" them, or
    (c)	the OS/operator arbitrarily expunges them (e.g., when the
	disk full-ness passes some high-water-mark).
(This is as I remember TOPS-20, I assume VMS (and TENEX and other OS's
derived from TENEX) behave similarly).

This scheme has two problems:
    (a)	you must have LOTS of disk space available or the system
	will be continually expunging, and
    (b)	UNIX just isn't set up this way (i.e., file names and generation
	numbers are incompatible).

Rather than rewriting the kernel and the file system, or rewriting the
shells and all the other utilities, I find intresting the concept of
"watchdog" extensions to the UNIX kernel, described by (damn!! I cannot
find the reference -- I thought it was the summer 88 Usenix conference
but I don't see it in the proceedings -- can anybody help??).

The basic idea is that there exists a set of "watchdog" programs, each
of which protects one (or more) file(s).  When your program attempts to
open/read/write/close such a file, the kernel first consults the
watchdog for that file.  The watchdog can then, e.g., make a backup
copy in some "shadow" directory, to be "expunged" later. (Obviusly,
there's a lot more you can use a watchdog for than simply keeping backup
copies of files).

Well, that's my five (or ten :-) cents' worth.  Hope you can find the
reference -- check back issues of ;login:, and proceedings of other
usenix conferences.  Or maybe somebody else can supply it.
-- 
Steve Harris -- Eaton Corp. -- Beverly, MA --  uunet!etnibsd!vsh