16 Dec
2013
16 Dec
'13
12:53 a.m.
On Sat, Dec 14, 2013 at 03:43:53PM +1100, Jason White wrote: ...
Yes, of course it's possible to change the date stamp of files and avoid the detection of modifications, when date stamps are relied on. However, it's obviously more efficient to check date stamps than to compute hashes of file contents, users generally don't change the former, and a version control system isn't a security tool designed to resist unexpected user behaviour. As I remember, cvs and svn both use date stamps. It's interesting that Git has opted for a different trade-off in this case, a reasonable decision to make, arguably, but one which has its efficiency costs.
Don't forget, git is distributed. Neither cvs nor svn is by nature. Karl