How do you store file permissions in a repository? A few files need to be read-only to stop a third party program from trashing it but after checking out of the repository they are set to read-write.

I looked on google and found a blog post from 2005 that states that Subversion doesn't store file-permissions. There are patches and hook-scripts listed (only one url still exists). Three years later does Subversion still not store file permissions and are hooks the only way to go about this? (I've never done hooks and rather use something that is native to Subversion.)