Adopey.136 net.unix-wizards utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!duke!unc!dopey.smb Fri Mar 5 10:52:33 1982 Re: Great gaping security hole To the best of my knowledge, that glitch was first described by duke!trt and duke!jte in their paper on writing setuid programs (it's an example of why *no* files should be generally writable). The reason it's so serious is that it's generally applicable -- almost any site with sophisticated terminals is vulnerable. (Ironically, IBM machines are among the *least* vulnerable; they use 3270 terminals, where the transmit screen command is out of band, at least for locally- attached ones.) I would add one or two frills on the basic idea, but I probably shouldn't; they help avoid detection..... ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.