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From: ado@elsie.UUCP (Arthur David Olson)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.questions
Subject: Re: Destroying arguments
Message-ID: <7425@elsie.UUCP>
Date: Sat, 23-May-87 10:26:06 EDT
Article-I.D.: elsie.7425
Posted: Sat May 23 10:26:06 1987
Date-Received: Sun, 24-May-87 02:04:08 EDT
References: <292@osupyr.UUCP> <239@polyof.UUCP> <485@bene.UUCP> <6723@mimsy.UUCP> <19590@sun.uucp>
Distribution: comp.unix.questions
Organization: NIH-LEC, Bethesda, MD
Lines: 22
Summary: window of vulnerability

> ...requiring the user to type 40, or 80, or however many Xes is simply
> silly.

Seems like you could reduce (but not eliminate) the window of vulnerability by
having the program reexecute itself this way:

#define XX "XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX"

main(argc, argv)
char *	argv[];
{
	if (strcmp(argv[0], XX) != 0) {
		argv[0] = XX;
		execv(MYSELF, argv);
		perror(MYSELF);
	}
}

Doing this would not require the user to type in Xes.
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