Newsgroups: news.software.b
Path: utzoo!henry
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Subject: Re: unsafe control articles
Message-ID: <1991Apr29.011435.28611@zoo.toronto.edu>
Date: Mon, 29 Apr 1991 01:14:35 GMT
References: <1991Apr28.175618.8934@unixland.uucp>
Organization: U of Toronto Zoology

In article <1991Apr28.175618.8934@unixland.uucp> bill@unixland.uucp (Bill Heiser) writes:
>Lately I've seen numerous "control message looks unsafe to execute"
>messages.  Have other people seen these?  What is it that they're
>detecting?  Is someone "really" trying to do something bad?

We see them occasionally.  Typically it means control messages that have
metacharacters in them and hence can't safely be handed to the shell.  The
usual cause is people who can't spell "cancel".  The cancel handler is
built into relaynews for several reasons, and its argument is a <>bracketed
message ID.  Almost any misspelling (e.g. capitalizing it) means that it
does not get recognized as a built-in and gets considered for execution as
a normal control message, at which point the <> causes rejection.
-- 
And the bean-counter replied,           | Henry Spencer @ U of Toronto Zoology
"beans are more important".             |  henry@zoo.toronto.edu  utzoo!henry