file-3.27 introduces a bug in the recognition of stripped
ELF files (not only on Linux, BTW). They are reported as
"not stripped", which causes heavy activism trying to debug
SPEC files e.g.  ;-) This bug has been reported to the
authors of the program. No new version has been made
available yet, though.

Fix:
--- file-3.27/readelf.c.strip   Sun Feb 14 18:16:10 1999
+++ file-3.27/readelf.c Sat May 29 09:46:26 1999
@@ -147,7 +147,7 @@
        for ( ; num; num--) {
                if (read(fd, sh_addr, size) == -1)
                        error("read failed (%s).\n",
strerror(errno));
-               if (shs_type == SHT_SYMTAB || shs_type ==
SHT_DYNSYM) {
+               if (shs_type == SHT_SYMTAB) {
                        (void) printf (", not stripped");
                        return;
                }

Further patches (for magic) are available from me.