[vox-tech] xhost+: Why you should NEVER DO THAT

[Bill Kendrick]

On Mon, Mar 21, 2005 at 11:33:39AM -0800, Dmitriy wrote:
> On Friday 18 March 2005 02:18, Karsten M. Self wrote:
> > Mark Kim apparently insists on dispersing bad advice regarding use of
> > xhost + to allow remote X11 access.
> >
> 
> I agree that it's a bad advice.

As do I.  On the other hand, this whole thread has blossomed into a very
full discussion, with lots of references, on _why_ "xhost +" is bad,
and comparing/contrasting other connection schemes.

In one sense, Karsten and others have/might argue: "People will google
and find "xhost + is your answer"" and get BAD INFORMATION!  NOT GOOD!

But on the other hand, there's a whole /THREAD/ of information on _why_ it's
bad, so that people who might think "xhost + is as good as SSH" will see
why it is NOT.  (OTOH, if the thread simply said "use SSH", their incorrect
assumption won't be brought to light.)


> When user needs that advice, he likely doesn't know intricacies of X enough to 
> know which situations are acceptable to use "xhost +" in, and and which ones 
> are not.

This is a good consideration to make when answering questions here, and
elsewhere.


<snip>
> Again, both of this scenarios are very undesirable.  So please avoid advice 
> that can very easily be harmful to people.  Remember that there are archives 
> that show up on google, and different people are likely to have slightly 
> different circumstance, and not everyone is fully aware of security 
> implications. (And even if next email explains alternatives and implications,
> user who has a problem is not going to bother reading it all, 95% of the 
> time. Trust me)

Oh, I guess maybe it's just me.  I make full use of "Next in thread"
and "References" links in mail archives, personally. ;)

-bill!