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From: ahd@clutx.clarkson.edu (Drew Derbyshire,,,6176413739)
Newsgroups: comp.mail.misc
Subject: Re: Source Code For Berkeley Mail?
Message-ID: <1990Sep22.231012.25710@news.clarkson.edu>
Date: 22 Sep 90 23:10:12 GMT
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>>In article <1990Sep21.171510.3817@portia.Stanford.EDU> usa@portia.Stanford.EDU (Nan Wu) writes:
>>I am posting this for a friend who cannot send mails because the system
>>manager doesn't want people to read messages and thus has disabled the
>>Berkeley "mail" program.  However, the sendmail daemon is still running.
>>His question is:  can he get the source code for the "mail" program so
>>that he can at least send out messages through sendmail daemon?  The
>>machine he is on is a Dec-station 3100 running Ultrix.  He'll appreciate
>>any pointers.  Please e-mail to this account.  Thanks!
> 
> I'll give you a straight answer because not only do I realize that
> security by obscurity is no security at all but also because I realize
> that many sysadms are not in the chain of command and end up being pricks
> just to show that  they can. 

The correct question to ask is WHY doesn't the sysadmin want people
reading mail.  Some reasons can be changed, and some reasons you cannot
beat with a new mail program (such as he never configured the
sendmail.cf properly).

The correct action is not to install your own mailer, but rather get
policy (or the sysadmin) changed.  This is not for ethical reasons, but
rather, the simple reason if the sysadmin catches the user doing an end
run all hell will break looose.

For those who live to beat the Sysadmin, however, try:

	ln -s /usr/lib/sendmail mail
	./mail

If the sysadmin forgot to lock up sendmail itself, and only locked the
"mail" link to the sendmail program, creating and invoking your own
soft link to it will cause it to run in  a mode you send mail from.  Of
course, delete the link when done to reduce the chances of the
aforementioned all hell breaking loose.

This approach, if it works, is "somewhat" faster than transferring the
source for sendmail halfway across the known universe and recompiling.
:-)