Why is "nobody" called the "most privileged user after root"? When I was first learning Linux I recall reading that because it is so widely used, "nobody" is (jokingly?) known as the "second most privileged user, after `root`" on Unix machines. A quick google search seems to corroborate that it is a common saying, not just a quirk of the author I was reading. Why is this a common saying? Is it really true?

Sometime Linux distributions incorrectly implement the standards and assign files to the user nobody. In that case programs have access to a bunch of files which are not for them.

According to the standards, the user nobody shouldn't own any files and it should only be used to run programs which don't need to have privileges.

Nevertheless, the more secure option would be to have a separate user for each program which needs to run software without privileges.