From: Frank T Lofaro <fl0p+@andrew.cmu.edu> Subject: Re: od gives "Is a directory" when used on dir files Date: Mon, 10 May 1993 18:07:49 -0400
Reading directories can be kinda a bad idea. It is not portable
across different filesystems, and even poses a security hole! One can
find out names of deleted files by reading the directory. (I've seen
this under Ultrix, strings /usr/tmp outputs some "interesting"
filenames, that aren't even in the directory at the time!-granted it is
just filenames, but I don't like the idea of someone finding the name of
deleted files, there could be bad privacy implications). I am usually
always one for new features (in fact, if a missing feature from Linux
peeves me enough, I'll hack up my kernel, and add it myself! ;) ), but
this is one we could do without. I certainly would consider software hat
used such a "feature" broken in the compatibility department.