Ethereal-dev: [ethereal-dev] GTK+ programs unsafe to make set-UID?

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From: Guy Harris <gharris@xxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Sun, 27 Feb 2000 12:26:01 -0800
The subthread on the GNOME site at:

http://news.gnome.org:80/gnome-news/951499666/951526170/951541686/index_html

quotes Havoc Pennington (one of the GTK+ developers) as saying:

	The problem is that you CANNOT link an suid binary to GTK.  NO
	WAY.  It's a gaping, huge, enormous, unbelievable barn door of a
	security hole.

and

	IT IS TOTALLY UNSAFE TO MAKE ANY GTK PROGRAM SUID. Period.

If true (and I suspect he's correct), then, given that Ethereal is a
GTK+ program, making it set-UID to root, no matter how convenient it
might be, might be a Very Bad Idea unless you can control who gets to
run it on your machine.