Re: Does anyone really use emacs in terminal?

[Bob Proulx <bob@proulx.com>]

Pascal J. Bourguignon wrote:
> Bob Proulx writes:
> >   # emacs -nw
> >
> > And surely everyone on this list would agree that emacs is a good
> > editor for root to use.
> 
> Yes.  However, you must be conscious of the theorical possibility of
> emacs lisp viruses thru file and directory local variables.

But emacs will always ask you if it should proceed due to that issue.
It will never do it automatically.  It isn't intrinsically insecure.

> If you find-file in a directory where a malicious user has written a
> .dir-locals.el file, he could theorically take advantage of it to root
> you.  Of course, normally emacs ask permission to evaluate a form, or to
> set any variable he doesn't know to be safe.  But if you type y or !
> carelessly, you can be hosed.

But only if you approve using the local setting.  And you would need
to be exposed to hostile user attack in order to trigger it.

If it is your laptop with you as the only user that is unlikely and
answer yes without thinking probably won't hurt you.  You can think
less.  You are more safe on your own machine where only you work.

If you are an admin of a university system with clever kids poking at
the system with social engineering attacks then you need to be more
vigilant.  But then you should always be vigilant in a hostile
environment such as those.

Bob