tar alternative

[Tim <tim-security () sentinelchicken org>]

> Don't. Untar. Archives. As. Root.
>
> It's that simple.
>
> Or are you also going to complain about the fact that there are tar
> versions out there that don't strip a leading / from the archive?
> Much fun can be had when you carelessly extract as root, then.

Hello,

Sorry to change the subject slightly here on this thread, but I was
wondering about this before the topic came up.

Given the problems with using the tar format for file distribution, are
there any other simple, non-compressed file-grouping formats out there
that weren't originally designed for backups (e.g. don't contain
usernames, permissions, etc)?  Something that can be a drop-in
replacement for tar and thus can integrate with gzip/bzip2 easily?
(Don't even say .zip)

There's probably one out there I'm completely naive about, but I haven't
seen one yet that would be a safer alternative.

thanks,
tim

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