Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 14:21:02 -0700 From: Jamie Lawrence <jal@ThirdAge.com> To: Jay Tribick <netadmin@fastnet.co.uk>, security@FreeBSD.ORG Cc: Snob Art Genre <benedict@echonyc.com> Subject: Re: cat exploit Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.19980911142102.009c86d0@204.74.82.151> In-Reply-To: <Pine.BSF.3.96.980911090428.4232A-100000@bofh.fast.net.uk> References: <Pine.GSO.4.02.9809110115070.27098-100000@echonyc.com>
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At 09:09 AM 9/11/98 +0100, Jay Tribick wrote: > >| > >How about something more practical? Like being able to turn off this >| > >"feature". >| > >| > "rm /bin/cat" > > ^- Not very practical, it would break a lot of scripts Sigh. Most people noticed that I was being flip. >| I'd like to hear a wider variety of opinions on the matter -- in >| particular, I wonder if anyone still uses the feature for anything, and >| if it's been exploited. I don't understand why you're so dismissive >| about it. I'm dismissive of it because the behaviour has been known for a very, very long time. It is defined behaviour, and no worse than a lot of other gotchas that exist in *nix. I thought everyone learned about this by having someone else annoy them with ^Gs until they figured it out. Guess not. >I think we've had enough replies on this thread - I still think it >/may/ be exploitable if you had a . in your path and within the >tarball was a file called xtermxterm.. but, let's drop it here >before it gets out of hand :) It is 'exploitable' in ways that have nothing to do with your $PATH. Much in the same way shells are 'exploitable' because you can compromise someone's account by convincing them to run an arbitrary script you wrote (only more obscurely so). >Anyone wants to reply to this, do it privately please. I would have, if there hadn't been misconceptions to be cleared up. -j To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org with "unsubscribe freebsd-security" in the body of the message
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