Hi CHARLES! :-)

 CA> There are many Linux executables that operate at a lower level
 CA> than is wise IMO. I realize there are purists that insist this
 CA> is a good thing but really, for general use, it's not IMO. 
Basic Unix design principle - everything is a file. This has huge benefits,
namely that a program does not have to care whether it operates on a file
or a device. If it were otherwise, stuff like tar would need different code
for writing to a file or writing to a tape drive. It also works the other
way around - creating filesystems on image files instead of devices. That
would probably not be possible at all if devices had a different interface
from files.

General use doesn't apply here, mostly. Most work should be from a user
account, and a user should not have write access to critical device nodes.
root can shoot himself in the foot, yes, but in many more ways than
accidentally writing to a device file.

Ciao
Pascal

--- Msged/LNX 6.1.1