Ports and privileges

[Chris Pugrud <ChrisP () steldyn com>]

I know that _one_ of the primary reasons for all of the workarounds in
doing suid and chroot is because many of these programs need to run as
root (yes, chroot has many other uses).  Why do they need to run as
root?  The primary reasons seems to be so that they can open privileged
ports.

How hard would it be to modify the stack (say Linux) so that I can run
an unprivileged program on a low port (say 80)?  Why would this be a bad
thing?  I understand the original concept, to keep users from running
programs on privileged ports, but firewalls don't have users.

Is there another logical reason that this step is not taken.  Why can't
I have a compile time option of "Disable privileged port restrictions?"
Or is this coded so deeply in the system that it would just be a
nightmare?

Is the privileged port concept just a fuzzy glossover for some hidden
primary issue that I don't want unprivileged uid's running on
"privileged" ports on a firewall?

I know I am not the first person to follow this logic chain.  What I
want to know is why isn't it being done.

Thoughts,

Chris