Block potentially malicious R calls

Question

Let's presuppose that you have R running with root/admin privileges. What R calls do you consider harmful, apart from system() and file.*()?

This is a platform-specific question, I'm running Linux, so I'm interested in Linux-specific security leaks. I will understand if you block discussions about R, since this post can easily emerge into "How to mess the system up with R?"

Answer 1

Do not run R with root privs. There is no effective way to secure R in this way, since the language includes eval and reflection, which means I can construct invocations to system even if you don't want me to.

Far better is to run R in a way that cannot affect the system or user data, no matter what it tries to do.

Answer 2

Anything that calls external code could also be making system changes, so you would need to block certain packages and things like .Call(), .C(), .jcall(), etc.

Suffice it to say that it will end up being a virtually impossible task, and you are better off running it in a virtualized environment, etc. if you need root access.