Bruce Momjian <pgman@candle.pha.pa.us> writes:
> Thinking we have security because they can't guess
> pgdata seems like security through obscurity to me.
Sure, but it's still a useful roadblock to throw in an attacker's way.
I spent many years doing computer security stuff, and one thing I
learned is that the more layers of security you can have, the better.
You don't put all your faith in any one roadblock; you erect a series
of them that an attacker will have to break through all of. If some
of 'em are a little porous, that doesn't make 'em useless.
In today's context, I think the main point of requiring an attacker
to guess $PGDATA is that it helps avoid the "software monoculture"
syndrome. If someone did manage to write a Postgres-based virus that
involved an exploit in this area, it could only spread to machines
that had the $PGDATA value the virus writer was expecting.
regards, tom lane