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Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!codas!akgua!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw
From: throopw@dg_rtp.UUCP (Wayne Throop)
Newsgroups: net.news
Subject: New! Improved! Line-Eater bug!!
Message-ID: <653@dg_rtp.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 18-Oct-86 15:49:27 EDT
Article-I.D.: dg_rtp.653
Posted: Sat Oct 18 15:49:27 1986
Date-Received: Tue, 21-Oct-86 06:31:57 EDT
Lines: 42
Summary: two examples of a mutated line-eater revealed, experts baffled

The Line-Eater lives!!!  Well, not *THE* line eater, mind you.  Just a
distant relative.  This one likes to munch on articles from the end
towards the beginning.  The basis for this one's snacking habits are
also not known.  Nor its unnatural habitat.  I noticed this mangled
article in mod.comp-soc

    Path: dg_rtp!rti-sel!mcnc!philabs!cmcl2!yale!
          husc6!rutgers!sri-spam!sri-unix!hplabs!hplabsc!taylor
    Newsgroups: mod.comp-soc
    Subject: Virtual Communities and so on.
    Message-ID: <719@hplabsc.UUCP>
    Lines: 127

The article really seems to have about 80 lines (actually
79-and-a-partial), and seemed to be truncated at 3669 characters
(excluding header), and 4158 with header.  It is possible that at some
intermediate node the article size was exactly 4096 at the cut-off
point, which might be interesting.

In order to have another manifestation of the bug to examine, I looked
around more-or-less at random and found

    Path: dg_rtp!rti-sel!mcnc!philabs!cmcl2!seismo!think!nike!
          cit-vax!ll-xn!mit-amt!mit-eddie!mit-vax!oaf
    Newsgroups: talk.politics.misc
    Subject: All the Muslims I know???
    Message-ID: <894@mit-vax.UUCP>
    Lines: 67

This one seemed to really have around 29 lines.  Without header it
seemed to be 1615 characters, and with header about 2157.  *This* one
might well have been 2048 characters at some intermediate site.

Any comment from the system admins of the systems shared on the two
paths?  Recent new software?  Hardware problems?  Hmmmmm?

--
Software is under a constant tension.  Being symbolic it is arbitrarily
perfectible; but also it is arbitrarily changeable.
                                --- Alan J. Perlis
-- 
Wayne Throop      <the-known-world>!mcnc!rti-sel!dg_rtp!throopw