[LBo] umask query

[Andrew Henry]

I'm reading chapter 7 and it talks about setting the umask in
/etc/bashrc.  I run Ubuntu Dapper Drake so mine is set system-wide in
/etc/profile as 022, and my question is:

Why are all newly created files set so that all users can read them?

I recently set-up a new user for ssh access and realised that they could
read all files in my home directory, so I changed it so that
/home/andrew was 750.  Now they cannot read any of my files.  Why is
this not default?  Seems strange that default config would make every
users home readable by all other users.  Is there a drawback to setting
750 on my home directory?

Regards,
andrew

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