Making .bash_history non writeable by user?

[Girish Venkatachalam]

Hello friends,

My friend wants the user commands history file ~/.bash_history to be non
writeable by user. He feels that the user should not able to erase the commands
entered by him. 

A reasonable requirement.

In case the ~/.bash_history file can also be written to
another location that the root alone can access then perhaps we can
solve this problem.

But AFAIK bash runs as the user process. How can you make the file
readable and writeable by root alone? In that case how can the history 
mechanism function?

Do you guys know a way to get around this problem?

Thanks.

-Girish

-- 
"unix soi qui mal y pense"

UNIX to him who evil thinks