Comment 21 for bug 48734

The majority of users of Ubuntu systems either have exclusive use of the
machine (personal laptop) or are sharing with friends and relatives. We
assume that the people who share the machine are either trusted, or in a
position to hack the machine (boot from USB!) trivially. As a result,
there is little to no benefit from the permissions you propose.

Now, in a more complex environment, like a university machine with many
users, people do not have access to the hardware and can't easily root
the box, but they also have the sysadmin skills to change the default
permission.

Ergo, we stick with the permission as they stand today.

Mark