0

I know paranoia meaning but I'm reading isc-dhcp source code and I got confused about this term in system programming and linux world.

configure.ac file has following codes :

# PARANOIA is off by default (until we can test it with all features)
AC_ARG_ENABLE(paranoia,
    AS_HELP_STRING([--enable-paranoia],[enable support for chroot/setuid (default is no)]))
AC_ARG_ENABLE(early_chroot,
    AS_HELP_STRING([--enable-early-chroot],[enable chrooting prior to configuration (default is no)]))
# If someone enables early chroot, but does not enable paranoia, do so for
# them.
if test "$enable_paranoia" != "yes" && \
   test "$enable_early_chroot" = "yes" ; then
    enable_paranoia="yes"
fi

if test "$enable_paranoia" = "yes" ; then
    AC_DEFINE([PARANOIA], [1],
          [Define to any value to include Ari's PARANOIA patch.])

And isc used this macros on his source codes.

Anyway i don't know what is paranoia meaning in this position.

Is this point to security restriction and containerization ?

I can't find good resource for understanding this terms.

alirezaarzehgar
  • 171
  • 1
  • 8
  • 2
    It seems to just be the author's own name for some configuration option. The help text suggests that what this option does is to enable support for chroot and setuid, which are concepts you can look up. "Paranoia" isn't a technical term at all, it's just an English word meaning "excessive fear that someone may attack you", so the author probably thought it seemed fitting for an option that increases security. – Nate Eldredge Aug 15 '21 at 13:44
  • @NateEldredge In the context of programming, Paranoia typically refers to a somewhat well-known floating point test suite, used for checking how well a compiler and FPU handles floating point. – Lundin Aug 16 '21 at 08:18
  • @Lundin: Sure, or to a [library for reading damaged CD-ROMs](https://www.xiph.org/paranoia/faq.html). But from context it doesn't appear that either of those was the intended meaning here. I should have said "'Paranoia' isn't being used here as a technical term". – Nate Eldredge Aug 16 '21 at 13:52
  • @NateEldredge It got famous in the times of the Intel FPU bug on the very first Pentium in the early 90s. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Kahan – Lundin Aug 16 '21 at 14:06

1 Answers1

-1

As Nate mentions in a comment:

It seems to just be the author's own name for some configuration option. The help text suggests that what this option does is to enable support for chroot and setuid, which are concepts you can look up. "Paranoia" isn't a technical term at all, it's just an English word meaning "excessive fear that someone may attack you", so the author probably thought it seemed fitting for an option that increases security

Bhargav Rao
  • 50,140
  • 28
  • 121
  • 140
  • 1
    Mehran, you just copied the comment given by `Nate Eldredge` on Aug 15,2021. `This is not acceptable at all`. You can't copy other people's comment and post as your own answer. – Muhammad Tariq Aug 26 '21 at 01:10