Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Path: utzoo!lsuc!dave
From: dave@lsuc.uucp (David Sherman)
Subject: Re: nonstandard '..' and '.' entries - (nf)
Date: Sun, 31-Jan-88 08:47:16 EST
Summary: Usable for hiding setUID programs from the sysadmin
Message-ID: <1988Jan31.084717.16808@lsuc.uucp>
References: <4300010@pcsbst.UUCP>
Organization: Law Society of Upper Canada, Toronto

In article <4300010@pcsbst.UUCP>, jh@pcsbst writes:
> 1)      Who else in the world uses non-standard '.' or '..' entries
> 	and for what reasons?

Back on v6 systems before fsck, I used to use ".." directories to hide
# echo "main(){(execl("/bin/sh",0);}">z.c;cc z.c;chmod 4755 a.out
when I had superuser status on a system and expected to lose that
status one day. Programs like find(1) searching for root-owned setUID
programs would never find them.  Some sysadmins (you guys know who
you are:-) found this unamusing.

Of course, I reformed years ago, around the time I became a sysadmin :-)
And, of course, there are more subtle ways to maintain one's su status...

David Sherman
-- 
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