They're bits, in groups of three. rwxr-xrwx would be "111, 101, 111", so 7, 5, 7. I may be odd, but I don't find reading "small numbers" in binary to be much h

They're bits, in groups of three. rwxr-xrwx would be "111, 101, 111", so 7, 5, 7. I may be odd, but I don't find reading "small numbers" in binary to be much harder than reading "small numbers" in decimal, or hex. Up to about 15-or-so... Maybe as far as 31. But get to six bits, and it's time to actually start doing multiplications and additions, for me.