Just to second your comment cLive ;-), the earlier unfounded preaching about security was a little on the negative side -- as you say, it absolutely *does* depend upon circumstance and that snippet was completely out of context!
"Secure" in one environment could mean completely "insecure" in some other environment, anyway the snippet (your improved version of it) is going into a utility script which parses text records of hostnames and IP Addresses (into bind zone file format) which unfortunately must be gathered by hand from an NMS environment already in production. Output directories are created however if an IP address fails to pass an integrity test, the script might have to be run another time by the indentured servant operator after correcting the IP. Then the results will have to be gathered so it's actually OK in this environment for anyone and everyone to see and know about these directories, and leaving older directories from the same day will save the servantry from having to learn enough Unix to delete any unwanted directories. This machine is on a private trusted network and the staff is trusted.
$Id: .signature,v .99 Sun May 12 19:48:45 2002 hsinclai Exp $
Program terminated
{7} abnormal CONTACT YOUR SUPERVISOR