On Thu, Jun 26, 2003 at 05:19:33PM -0400, der Mouse wrote:
> 
> > No, userland tools should never be able to crash the kernel (other
> > than root deliberately scribbling in kmem or something similar).
> 
> I once tried to define what it is about things like
> 	dd if=/dev/zero of=/dev/mem
> that exempt them from the "userland should never be able to crash the
> kernel" dictum.  I never really got anywhere.  Any thoughts?
> 
The superuser has the same level of authority as the kernel, maybe
a fraction more.  Hence the superuser can crash the kernel.  The
"dictum" merely does not apply to "root".

++L

PS: WinNT has a "system" user and an "administrator" with different
privileges.  Which means that one can create files that can't be
deleted by anyone, etc.  A badly re-invented wheel.