Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!samsung!usc!sdd.hp.com!mips!bismarck!riley
From: riley@mips.COM (Riley Rainey)
Newsgroups: comp.windows.x
Subject: Re: Offending game?
Message-ID: <42215@mips.mips.COM>
Date: 18 Oct 90 15:25:00 GMT
References: <1990Oct17.095033.1034@urz.unibas.ch>
Sender: news@mips.COM
Reply-To: riley@mips.COM (Riley Rainey)
Organization: MIPS Computer Systems, Inc.
Lines: 38

In article <1990Oct17.095033.1034@urz.unibas.ch> schwengeler@urz.unibas.ch writes:
>Hello,
>
>I'd like to know why the game "acm", posted in "comp.sources.x" must
>use the functions "gethostname", "get_user" and the like and why
>it needs to do network functions with the internet.
>Does a Xwindow game need all this things, or is it just a bad
>attempt to grap usernames/passwords from everywhere in the world?
>Could an X guru give me an answer?

acm is divided into two component programs.  A single server process, acms,
runs on a machine somewhere on your network; acm is a multi-player
simulation and this process drives all of the player X servers.

The second program, acm, is a simple program that gathers some basic
information and places a call to the acms server, requesting that a
new session be started on behalf of this user.  The information includes
the user's userid, command line arguments, and a "network oriented" X
display name (by network oriented, I mean an X display name that other
systems on the network could use in an XOpenDisplay() call --
"okole:0.0", for example, as opposed to simply ":0.0" as many users'
DISPLAY environment variables are set to).

acm uses getpwuid() and gethostname() to gather that information.  The
username was intended for game scoring that has yet to be implemented.
The hostname information is used to build this "network oriented" X display
name that I described when the user has the DISPLAY variable set to
a non-network name (again, such as ":0.0").

I can assure you that I didn't write acm to breach anyones' system
security.  It's nice to hear that a few peoples productivity has been
impacted, though :-).  Seriously, security is an issue close to nearly
everyone's heart today, and I would welcome a close examination of the
acm sources to verify its benevolence.
-- 
Riley Rainey		Internet: riley@mips.com
MIPS Computer Systems	UUCP:	  {ames,prls,decwrl,pyramid}!mips!riley
Dallas, Texas		Phone:	  (214) 770-7989