[cap-talk] The ACL model is incomplete

[Bill Frantz]

On 4/7/10 at 10:33 AM, alan.karp at hp.com (Karp, Alan H) wrote:

>Perfect.  On the third page (page 463) they introduce the "own" 
>permission for a file.  This permission is outside the ACL 
>model because it is part of the ACL entry for the file, but it 
>is a permission on the ACL entry itself, not the file.  
>Interestingly, "own" cannot be granted to any other user.


[Catching up after a 3 day DSL outage.]

This concept is perhaps the key to why Unix/Mac can't implement the
Periwinkle security policy, which is:

   Every file created by either Bill or Peri, either locally or 
on a
   server, should be owned by both of them and permissions 
should be
   changeable by both of them.

[We consider this policy reasonable for a couple that has been together
for 40 years. :-)]

We currently implement this policy by sharing a single user ID, 
but that
prevents us from having separate profiles (e.g. Programs 
accessible from
the dock.)

Cheers - Bill

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