Remove “This incident will be reported.” from user warnings • Hacker News Board

Re: Remove “This incident will be reported.” from user warnings

#101

Post by can16358p » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 7:35 PM UTC

stefncb wrote: post #23

jamal-kumar wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah, I kind of lament them removing this warning if I'm going to be honest. It feels like something such as that should be more common best practice. Of course decent log collection/monitoring should also be able to catch authlog stuff and alert accordingly and I'm sure most organizations rely on solutions like that instead of letting things get lost in email

It's only removed if sudo doesn't send mail. It still warns if it's relevant.

Isn't it leaking detail about internal policy about whether incorrect sudoing is getting reported or not though?

Re: Remove “This incident will be reported.” from user warnings

#102

Post by phendrenad2 » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 7:38 PM UTC

kitsunesoba wrote: post #93

Reminds me of using Win9x when programs crashed (as often happened then), prompting Windows to present those "This program has performed an illegal operation" dialogs. As a kid the only bit of that message that made any sense was "illegal operation" which made me wonder if I'd broken some law somehow.

This is why I don't put easter eggs or obscure programmer-lingo into programs anymore. Every error is potentially user-facing.

Re: Remove “This incident will be reported.” from user warnings

#103

Post by ChrisMarshallNY » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 7:39 PM UTC

sph wrote: post #27

asdfman123 wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because we’ve never seen him doesn’t mean he hasn’t at some point quietly summoned a curse on us

Or silently reduced your quota by 20%

Was his name Simon?

Re: Remove “This incident will be reported.” from user warnings

#104

Post by freedomben » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 7:42 PM UTC

TaylorAlexander wrote: post #70

freedomben wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is there more to the change than the linked commit? Because if not, looking at the code change I don't see how you could possibly be correct. There is no additional logic/branching that could be checking whether sudo sends mail or not, just a string change.

It was added back in a later commit but only prints if the mail is configured.

Nice, thanks that's very useful info

Re: Remove “This incident will be reported.” from user warnings

#105

Post by sergiomattei » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 7:44 PM UTC

bqmjjx0kac wrote: post #25

its-summertime wrote: post #11

Stressful message to see back when I was a clueless child. I'm glad its getting removed.

I had a similar reaction to Windows 95's "An illegal operation has occurred." I remember wondering whether the police were on their way.

My brother pulled this prank on me when I was first learning batch file.

I thought I was going to jail.

Re: Remove “This incident will be reported.” from user warnings

#106

Post by wolfd » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 7:44 PM UTC

When I was in uni, the computer science school actually did occasionally check these reports. Specifically, a guy named Chris checked them. Some friends of mine apparently used this to send him messages.

`sudo hi chris`

Re: Remove “This incident will be reported.” from user warnings

#107

Post by throwaway892238 » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 7:46 PM UTC

There's no need to update the copyright year, but I do like it as a canary to tell somebody the file has been updated lately.

Re: Remove “This incident will be reported.” from user warnings

#108

Post by tedunangst » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 7:53 PM UTC

cobbal wrote: post #60

DonHopkins wrote: post #16

Why can't I report all those idiots posting the letter "F" in github comments? ;)

It's a low-effort addition to the dialogue, but it is a legitimate communication of a viewpoint. Who gets to draw the line of which comments should be nuked? (My view, the repo owner should (and maybe already has that power))

Why would somebody care about low effort dialog more than a year after the commit?

Re: Remove “This incident will be reported.” from user warnings

#109

Post by enw » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 7:54 PM UTC

ec109685 wrote: post #89

One of the most privileged processes on the system and no unit or functional tests need to be updated with this change. Sigh.

This always surprises me.

How come there are seemingly zero tests for what’s essentially critical infrastructure?

How do you make sure things keep working? How do you prevent regressions as team members change and tribal knowledge and intuition is lost? How do you ensure all future humans working on the project can make meaningful changes with confidence?

Re: Remove “This incident will be reported.” from user warnings

#110

Post by IshKebab » Sat, Apr 29, 2023, 7:55 PM UTC

moogly wrote: post #41

My favorite message I got in Ubuntu in 2008 (I still have a screenshot of it): > Could not grab your mouse. > A malicious client may be eavesdropping on your session or you may have just clicked a menu or some application just decided to get focus. > Try again. > [Close]

I suspect a lot of readers here will not understand what's hilarious about this.