Subject: Re: bug#29182: CVE-2017-1000383: umask and backup files

From: Glenn Morris <[email-masked]>
Date: Tue, 07 Nov 2017 14:29:25 -0500

One solution is to put backup files in a single (private) location,
rather than alongside the original file. This is achievable in Emacs
with eg

(setq backup-directory-alist '(("\\`/[^/|:][^/|]*:")
   ("." . "<HOME>/.emacs.d/backups")))

where ~/.emacs.d/backups is created mode 700. I've used this in my
personal config for years.

A very brief search suggests that this seems to be what newer editors
(eg LibreOffice) do for backup files.