Wrong security attributes. Maybe a bug?

[Joshua C.]

I used to change the owner of some files to root and set them in 444
mode in order to prevent them from modification. And it worked that
way without any issues.

Recently I saw that I can modify/delete any file in my home directory.
Even if it is owned by root and is set as 444. If I'm the owner of the
directory these files are in, I can do whatever I want with them
regardless of their owner and attributes. This is in
kde-dolphin-4.1.4.fc9.

Is this a security bug or change in the kde/dolphin policies? Has
anyone else experienced this?