Interview Question for Senior Systems Administrator at Yahoo:

Initial thought would lead you to believe that 755 simply means read/execute for group and others. BUT!... if the directory cannot not be searched by the user, then the file cannot be accessed by the user. Consider a file that is 755 in a folder that is 700. That file cannot be access by anyone but the owner and root even though it is 755. All higher level folders must be searchable (x bit) in order for the 755 file's inode to be read. A 755 file can be accessed if all parental folders have the execute bit set for the accessing user.