Re: [PATCH] make st seekable again

[Arjan van de Ven]

On Thu, 2005-03-10 at 11:56 -0500, Bill Davidsen wrote:
> On Thu, 10 Mar 2005, Arjan van de Ven wrote:
> 
> > >  critical user data.
> > > 
> > > In other words, it should work correctly or not at all. At the least this
> > > should be a config option, like UNSAFE_TAPE_POSITIONING or some such.
> > > And show the option if the build includes BROKEN features. That should put
> > > the decision where it belongs and clarify the possible failures.
> > 
> > CONFIG_SECURITY_HOLES doesn't make sense.
> > Better to just fix the security holes instead.
> 
> I think you're an idealist. If this were something other than tar it would
> be simple, and you would be right. Well, you ARE right, but a change which
> breaks tar, which many sites use for backups, is really not practical,
> without a loophole until tar gets fixed. And as Alan noted, keeping track
> of the physical position is very hard, and getting a tar fix might take a
> while.
> 

No the problem is that the *st* code has a security hole. THAT is the
problem. Not that it would be seekable. But how it implements the seeks.
THAT part is the problem. And THAT can be fixed. 

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