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From: lmb@vsi1.UUCP (Larry Blair)
Newsgroups: news.admin,news.sysadmin,comp.mail.uucp
Subject: Re: Dangerous hole in Usenet!
Message-ID: <1237@vsi1.UUCP>
Date: 22 Nov 88 18:25:28 GMT
References: <1227@vsi1.UUCP> <148@ecicrl.UUCP>
Reply-To: lmb@vsi1.UUCP (Larry Blair)
Organization: VICOM Systems Inc., San Jose, CA
Lines: 28

In article <148@ecicrl.UUCP> clewis@ecicrl.UUCP (Chris Lewis) writes:
=In article <1227@vsi1.UUCP> lmb@vsi1.UUCP (Larry Blair) writes:
=>It has come to my attention the there is a MAJOR hole created by the way
=>many sites administer their machines.
=
=H'm.  I betcha that's the one that I've been hinting about for years.
=That almost every SA already knows (or *should* know) about.

Given the mail I've received, many were unaware.  We must remember that the
net is doubling in size every year.

=Anyways, I'm sending mail (from our news account as you've requested) to 
=you about whether it's the same hole.  If it's the same one, please post 
=a note to the net saying so (along with e-mail back to me for good measure).
=If it's not the same hole, I'll post a message similar to yours.

I received Chris' mail and, like a number of other admins, he has spotted
the problem.  He even sent me a sample of something that would exploit the
problem to give inattentive or unknowledgable admins a warning.

=I'm *strongly* tempted to send out a harmless exploitation of this hole
=after giving SA's sufficient warning to get their act together.  (I've
=been dreaming of "neat" ways of using it for years.... ;-)

I don't think you should do it.  It would put a seal of approval on
something we don't want to see.
-- 
Larry Blair   ames!vsi1!lmb   lmb%vsi1.uucp@ames.arc.nasa.gov