somewhat OT: configure and mterm was Re: Vintage terminals

[Gordon JC Pearce]

der Mouse wrote:

> The thing is, configure is an excellent place to hide a malicious
> grappling hook: it is frequently run by naïve installers, not
> uncommonly as root; by the nature of what it does, it is hard to
> sandbox (for example, it *must* be able to compile and run new
> programs); it is large and comparatively difficult to read over for
> human verification.

Well, if you're such a paranoid freak about it, only compile in a 
virtual machine.  Or, roll your own Makefiles from scratch.  Or read 
through configure.in and generate your own configure script.  Or all three.

Gordon