4.7. The Hard Link Dilemma
One common issue faced with file system security is related to a low level file system capability known as hard links. A hard link in generic terms is a legal occurrence of the same file on a file system in multiple directories. When created, a hard link serves simply as a reference to an existing file, and the link maintains the exact same attributes as its source file. Thus, if ownership, mode, or even the containing data is changed on a link, those exact same changes will be realized on the source file. In OS X, and indeed most POSIX-compliant systems supporting hard links, a user can create a hard link to any file to which they have read access, as long as they have write access to the destination that they specify, ...
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