Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!ames!nrl-cmf!ukma!cwjcc!gatech!rutgers!bellcore!texbell!sugar!ficc!peter
From: peter@ficc.uu.net (Peter da Silva)
Newsgroups: comp.unix.wizards
Subject: Re: Terminals are ridiculously insecure
Keywords: terminal, abuse, insecurity
Message-ID: <2680@ficc.uu.net>
Date: 10 Jan 89 15:20:12 GMT
References: <5228@phoenix.Princeton.EDU> <9324@smoke.BRL.MIL>
Organization: Xenix Support
Lines: 17

Even with totally fascist hangups, a simple trojan horse that established the
link for the duration of a tty session would be amazingly useful. Since it
would be a sleeper, and could disguise itself, it could run undetected for
months, on and off, until someone wants to spoof root.

No matter what you do, TIOCSTI is a major security hole and should be
eliminated... along with all the terminals that respond to transmit screen/
line/status-line/function-key sequences. I'm totally amazed that such a
capability is in the terminal driver.

And, as I pointed out in my old "Usenet Virus" article, there's really
no long-term protection against a trojan horse.
-- 
Peter da Silva, Xenix Support, Ferranti International Controls Corporation.
Work: uunet.uu.net!ficc!peter, peter@ficc.uu.net, +1 713 274 5180.   `-_-'
Home: bigtex!texbell!sugar!peter, peter@sugar.uu.net.                 'U`
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