Xref: utzoo comp.unix.wizards:13421 news.sysadmin:1936
Path: utzoo!utgpu!watmath!clyde!att!feathers!ron
From: ron@feathers.ATT.COM (2589)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards,news.sysadmin
Subject: Re: Trojan horse FIX for Rnmail and Pnews
Message-ID: <81@feathers.ATT.COM>
Date: 12 Dec 88 15:43:25 GMT
References: <6798@rosevax.Rosemount.COM> <591@auspex.UUCP> <6811@rosevax.Rosemount.COM> <1687@mcgp1.UUCP>
Reply-To: ron@feathers.ATT.COM (Ron Saad--615-2589)
Organization: AT&T Bell Labs, Red Hill, NJ
Lines: 38

In article <1687@mcgp1.UUCP> newsadm@mcgp1.UUCP (Netnews Administrator) writes:
]In article <6811@rosevax.Rosemount.COM>, news@rosevax.Rosemount.COM (News administrator) writes:
]>                                               If anyone has a vi
]> that doesn't understand +set nomodeline[s], they should speak up.
]
]The AT&T 3B1 (aka 7300 aka UNIX-PC) vi has modeline[s] on by default, with
]no way to turn it off!  I'm thinking of writing a simple C program, called vi,
]that scans the file[s] to be edited looking for the culprit string.  It will
] ...
]				John Opalko



If indeed there is no way to turn it off, you may not have a
choice but to scan the file first.  However, you may not need
a separate C program to do it - read on.

If modelines can be turned off, and you are trying to protect
users who don't disable modelines in .exrc, you can change
Pnews/Rnmail/whatever to print out a couple of lines into a
temp file and append the "real" message to it, having these
lines trigger the modelines (or equivalent emacs magic) -
something like:

	<e><x><:> set nomodelines

or, for the case above (where modeline cannot be disabled)

	<e><x><:> g/^[ TAB][ev][xi]:/s//MODELINE:/

Then, at the end of the editing session, these lines can be
removed.

		Ron.
-- 
Ron Saad - WF2K                                 ...!att!feathers!ron
Interface Systems                               ron@feathers.ATT.COM
@ AT&T Bell Labs, Red Hill (201) 615-2589