Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!neat.cs.toronto.edu!ken
Newsgroups: comp.sys.sgi
From: ken@cs.toronto.edu (Ken Lalonde)
Subject: IRIX 3.2: new directory blocks not zeroed?
Message-ID: <90Feb15.191156est.6155@neat.cs.toronto.edu>
Organization: Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Date: 16 Feb 90 00:12:33 GMT
Lines: 12

Unused space in newly created directories under IRIX 3.2 appears to
contain data leftover from recently removed files.  When I run the
following a few times on two of our 4D machines and one PI (all with
/tmp on the root SCSI disk), the "cat -v foo" prints part of the passwd file.

	% cd /tmp
	% cp /etc/passwd .		# any large text file will do
	% rm passwd
	% mkdir foo
	% cat -v foo

Bad news if you care about filesystem security.