Hard Links between UNIX Utility Programs

[Dale Farnsworth]

M. D. Parker (mparker at chip.UUCP) writes:
> I have noticed the tendency for some programs in UNIX to have hard links.
> The program operation is then determined by the name it was invoked by.
> 
> I'd like to request that in future releases, this short-cut be eliminated.

Argv[0] is just like any other argument to a unix program.  If a program
shouldn't change its behavior based on argv[0], it shouldn't change its
behavior on argv[1], argv[2], ....

Programs that provide more features than are absolutely necessary
for the job at hand are necessarily less secure than a program without
the additional features.  Security comes at a price.

-Dale

-- 
Dale Farnsworth		602-438-3092	noao!nud!df