You do make a good point. Sysadmins shouldn't have to worry about disarming a minefield. However, this is a simple problem with a simple fix, and it's known. I guess I just really hate when I see articles with headlines like "Linux Completely Insecure" (exagggeration) over issues like this with trivial fixes, because people who aren't exactly "educated linux users" get sucked in the FUD.
The moral of the story is that any system is only as good as the system administrator makes it. If you realize that you've got this problem on a mission-critical system, or even a web-server that sees heavy traffic, that administrator deserves to be fired. Come on, people, let's get over this "out of the box security" metric. It's worthless.
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You do make a good point. Sysadmins shouldn't have to worry about disarming a minefield. However, this is a simple problem with a simple fix, and it's known. I guess I just really hate when I see articles with headlines like "Linux Completely Insecure" (exagggeration) over issues like this with trivial fixes, because people who aren't exactly "educated linux users" get sucked in the FUD.
The moral of the story is that any system is only as good as the system administrator makes it. If you realize that you've got this problem on a mission-critical system, or even a web-server that sees heavy traffic, that administrator deserves to be fired. Come on, people, let's get over this "out of the box security" metric. It's worthless.