Re: backup method

[David Kastrup <dak@gnu.org>]

Richard Stallman <rms@gnu.org> writes:

>     Any reason why you didn't use make-temp-file?
>
> make-temp-file creates the file empty.  Between that and writing the
> data into it, someone else could delete the file and put in a symlink.

The permissions in world-writable temp directories are almost always
1777 which means that nobody but the owner can delete such a file.
Symlink attacks are only possible when the file name can be guessed by
an outside attacker _before_ the file is created.

It is probably just prehistoric and/or misconfigured systems (and
Windows?) where anybody can delete a file from somebody else in
temporary directories.

-- 
David Kastrup, Kriemhildstr. 15, 44793 Bochum