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From: rms@AI.MIT.EDU (Richard Stallman)
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help,comp.emacs
Subject: Backdoor rumor
Message-ID: <9102050313.AA26529@mole.ai.mit.edu>
Date: 5 Feb 91 03:13:04 GMT
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It's true that you can never be sure a program as big as Emacs is
correct.  (Not with today's technology, at least.)

However, there has never been a backdoor in Emacs, that I know of;
what The Cuckoo's Egg says about this is misleading.  LBL created a
backdoor by making movemail setuid root.  movemail at that time wasn't
designed for such use.  (Now it is--just in case.)