Why such "loose" permissions?

[Michael Hipp]

Kurt Wall wrote:
> Consuming 0.8K bytes, Michael Hipp blathered:
> 
>>Why are users files, by default, created with such loose permissions?
>>
>>Here's the typical perms automatically given to a new file created in my 
>>$HOME directory:
>>
>>-rw-r--r--    1 michael  michael         2 Dec 11 09:12 testfile.txt
> 
> 
> The umask is 022. These permissions seem acceptable to me. Other
> people can't modify your files, but they can look at them -- not
> an unreasonable assumption on multi-user system.

I guess, to me, that seems like a totally strange philosophy for a 
multi-user system - for everyone to be able to see everyone else's files 
by default. The way I was taught, in a Fortune 500, was to close 
everything and open only that which needs to be open. My files are mine 
and only someone I specifically allow access to them should be able to 
see them.

I know it can be changed, but seems like such loose defaults are just 
asking for trouble.

Oh well.

Michael