[RFC] Security policy for file handling

[Sheldon Gill]

Currently, there are a number of checks in core which enforce a 
particular security policy.

I believe that core should endeavour to respect the security policy of 
the system administrator rather than trying to enforce a specific policy 
of it's own.

I propose that the coding philosophy should be:
  *) When creating a file, do so with minimum permissions required
  *) When reading a file, open -> read -> close. Handle failure.

Essentially, if a file exists in the file system then core should 
respect it's permissions.
It should not try to change them.
It should not refuse to work because the permissions differ to an 
expected set which is hardcoded.
It should not refuse to work because uid isn't that of file owner.

However, it may be useful for system administrators and packagers to 
know more about what permissions should be set. The appropriate place 
for this is the documentation. Probably in with file heirarchy and path 
handling generally.

It may also be useful to create a "Check permissions" tool.


Regards,
Sheldon