[In case it is unclear.. Nathan is pointing out that Carolyn doesn't
 comprehend unix behaviour regarding 'rm'. If you start a process
 of "rm -rf /", she is saying that when it reaches the 'rm' binary,
 it will stop. This isn't true. Since 'rm' is loaded into memory already,
 it will happily rm the 'rm' binary, and continue on with the rest of the
 filesystem.]

From nathan@rtfm.net Fri Apr  3 15:56:23 1998
From: Nathan Dorfman 
To: Carolyn Meinel , jericho@dimensional.com
Cc: bbuster@showdown.org, mantis32@thepentagon.com,
    Hacker Warz 
Date: Fri, 3 Apr 1998 17:48:11 -0500
Subject: Re: The reality thing

On Fri, Apr 03, 1998 at 03:38:13PM -0700, Carolyn Meinel wrote:

[snip..]

> That's why, as you told me,  only part of the box
> was erased.  When the command deleted the executable for the rm command was
> when it stopped erasing.  

Wrong again. Once the executable is loaded in memory, you can sodomize the
disk file if you so wish--doesn't matter. Also, on unlink() (i.e. rm), the
directory entry is removed, but the file remains on disk until the last
process that has it open dies. This is how temporary files work--they create
a file in /tmp and unlink it. When the process dies, no matter how, it takes
its garbage with it. Of course, you probably already knew that.

I simply had to point this out, to someone who thinks she's so l33t and is
afraid of looking lame :)

> Carolyn Meinel
> M/B Research -- The Technology Brokers
> http://techbroker.com

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