From owner-freebsd-security Fri Sep 11 14:21:58 1998 Return-Path: Received: (from majordom@localhost) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) id OAA12232 for freebsd-security-outgoing; Fri, 11 Sep 1998 14:21:58 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from owner-freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG) Received: from stage1.thirdage.com (stage1.ThirdAge.com [204.74.82.151]) by hub.freebsd.org (8.8.8/8.8.8) with ESMTP id OAA12222 for ; Fri, 11 Sep 1998 14:21:53 -0700 (PDT) (envelope-from jal@ThirdAge.com) Received: from gigi (gigi.ThirdAge.com [204.74.82.169]) by stage1.thirdage.com (8.8.5/8.8.5) with SMTP id OAA22328; Fri, 11 Sep 1998 14:17:17 -0700 (PDT) Message-Id: <3.0.5.32.19980911142102.009c86d0@204.74.82.151> X-Sender: jal@204.74.82.151 X-Mailer: QUALCOMM Windows Eudora Pro Version 3.0.5 (32) Date: Fri, 11 Sep 1998 14:21:02 -0700 To: Jay Tribick , security@FreeBSD.ORG From: Jamie Lawrence Subject: Re: cat exploit Cc: Snob Art Genre In-Reply-To: References: Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii" Sender: owner-freebsd-security@FreeBSD.ORG Precedence: bulk X-Loop: FreeBSD.org 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