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From: daveh@marob.masa.com (Dave Hammond)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Hidden directories
Message-ID: <261FC9B3.583F@marob.masa.com>
Date: 8 Apr 90 23:30:57 GMT
References: <2592@ultb.isc.rit.edu> <1966@wheaton.UUCP> <5984@udccvax1.acs.udel.EDU>
Reply-To: daveh@marob.masa.com (Dave Hammond)
Distribution: usa
Organization: ESCC,  New York City
Lines: 30

sabi@vax1.acs.udel.EDU writes:

>Another way to give trouble to anyone wanting to look inside, is to embed a 
>control character inside the name.  I typically use a backspace, for example:
>abc\bde
>[...]

Of course, anyone capable of using `od' can short circuit any of these
tricks by simply typing:

	od -c <directory>

In fact, if the system uses SYSV-like directories, the output will read
like a road map of the directory contents:

0000020 026  \t   .  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0
	  ^^^^^^^   ^^
        inode,    filename (.)
0000040 024 037   .   h   i   s   t   o   r   y  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0
	  ^^^^^^^   ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
        inode,    filename (.history)
0000440   N 027 030 031 032   1   2   3  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0  \0
	  ^^^^^^^ ^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
	  inode,	filename (^X^Y^Z123)


--
Dave Hammond
daveh@marob.masa.com
uunet!masa.com!marob!daveh