If you are worried about a user getting to the dd(1) command, you should probably worry about then compiling C (libc), or having shell access at all, no? ________________________________ From: oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:oracle-l-bounce@xxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of rjamya Sent: Thursday, February 08, 2007 12:39 PM To: naqimirza@xxxxxxxxx Cc: Oracle-L @ freelists.org Subject: Re: Using DD to Read Data from Oracle Datafiles So, You can make sure that 1. any normal user can't get to the raw (or cooked) datafiles. 2. They don't have access to 'dd' command in addition to whatever else that you are doing.