Path: utzoo!attcan!uunet!lll-winken!lll-tis!ames!pasteur!ucbvax!ICST-CMR.ARPA!rbj
From: rbj@ICST-CMR.ARPA (Root Boy Jim)
Newsgroups: comp.emacs
Subject: Is GNU Cause of Security Problems???
Message-ID: <8805102131.AA00798@icst-cmr.arpa>
Date: 10 May 88 21:31:31 GMT
Sender: daemon@ucbvax.BERKELEY.EDU
Organization: The Internet
Lines: 23


   Nothing in gnu Emacs is suid root (or anything else), nor is anything
   default world writable.  Gnu should be no more "dangerous" than any
   other program.

It doesn't have to be. Hint: what editor do you use as root?
I distribute emacs around here, and there are a few machines I wouldn't
mind having root access to. Do you think people are going to look thru
all the lisp files to find my trojan horse? It could be anywhere, from
startup.el to dired.el to rmail.el. Or it could be in a compiled .elc
with the original source, virtually undetectable.

   Mike Clarkson						mike@ists.UUCP
   Institute for Space and Terrestrial Science		mike@ists.yorku.ca
   York University, North York, Ontario,
   CANADA M3J 1P3						(416) 736-5611

	(Root Boy) Jim Cottrell	
	National Bureau of Standards
	Flamer's Hotline: (301) 975-5688
	The opinions expressed are solely my own
	and do not reflect NBS policy or agreement
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