Oh, god, again: as long as there isn't any anonymous account set up for your FTP account, setting to 777 is safe. It also ensures that PHP and other CGI's and executables can handle all files correctly (this is something KSMAS must be able to do once installed, so some things that are installed use to get chmodded to 777 (or 766) and if that can't be done by PHP, which usually runs as a different user than the owner, the folder must be chmodded manually or maybe some files chowned.
However, this usually gets messed up by Safe Mode anyway
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