Discretionary Access Control (DAC)

If access to a target is based on OWNERSHIP we talk about discretionary access control. This means that the security of the target (e.g. a file) is completely and utterly at the "descretion" of its owner. This seems to be a reasonable concept at first because who else than an owner should decide what will happen with a resource? But it includes a large potential for failure and mis-use, e.g. through program errors, attacks or handling failures by the owner. The resource cannot defend itself against any kind of misuse as long as the owner authorizes it (knowingly or without consent). Most simple operating systems (windows, linux, Unix versions) implement discretionary access control (DAC)