Worm/Passwords

[Charles Meo]

In article <672 at quintus.UUCP> ok at quintus.UUCP (Richard A. O'Keefe) writes:
> In article <125 at embossed.UUCP> ron at embossed.UUCP (Ron Elliott) writes:
>>	4) Many of you talk about the thousands of hours lost due to 
>>	   the Morris Worm.  How about something like "rm *" ?  How many
>>	   hours have been lost over the last 15 years over that 
>>	   bug-feature.?  Yes, I know the workarounds, and have installed
>>	   them.  How come though Un*x venders still havn't issued fixed
>>	   rm's or even discuss the matter in their documentation?  Or
>>	   even supplied the workarounds in their distribution?
>
> You usually know when rm * happens, and if your site has a competent
> administrator you can recover your state as of the previous day.  An
> rm mistake doesn't erode the trust in a world-wide community!
>
> Now, how _do_ you fix "rm *"?  Suppose you restrict rm to delete exactly
> one file.  Watch:

<stuff deleted>

Why not put something in rm to check for the '*' token by itself and say
something like:

Are you sure y/n?

You may recognise this prompt; it is from the DYING UPPER CASE O/S:

MSDOS!!!

I am sure unix wizards will find this unnecessary and tedious: just like
restoring yesterday's backup (which we ALL did didn't we?) and bringing
in the work lost.

Perhaps this is a worthwhile departure from the traditional unix mode of 
operation, 'Silent but Deadly'.

Chuck.