`ssh` enforces that certain files have restricted access permissions - e.g. that `.ssh/config` not be writeable by anyone but the user, and that private key files not be writable or readable - or else the file will be ignored. This is a good security practice, and makes sense as the default. However, there are times when it is *not* possible to satisfy these requirements, and for such situations there needs to be an option to override or bypass these restrictions when that happens. For example, my own use case: I have a Linux VM which has some directories mapped in from the Windows host machine. Since the Windows file system doesn't support Unix-style file permissions, everything in these mounted directories appears permanently world-writable, which makes it *impossible* to use any SSH key or config files inside there.
I would also like to request this. I understand the implications on Unix-like systems, but for Windows this is a major time-waster. It took about 15 minutes too long to do a simple scp using an id file on Windows. I had to find and implement the Windows file security settings that would be acceptable to OpenSSH -- for *one* file -- then actually get on with the task of performing the scp. Maybe to some this is a minor thing, but when time is money, and Microsoft is using your project, this should definitely be either bypassed or a setting provided. Without cygwin or msys, you cannot simply issue chmod 600 * on Windows and everything is then okay. Thanks! :-)