Adecvax.181 net.misc utcsrgv!utzoo!decvax!aps Sun Mar 7 12:12:19 1982 mesg and the sec.whole >From aps Sat Mar 6 03:14:42 1982 Subject: Re: Security and Smart Terminals Newsgroups: net.unix-wizards Responding to dmmartindale of watmath: When you set mesg to n (accept no messages), what happens is that the write permissions on your terminal are turned off to others. This means that no one could do the following: (echo ESC LOOPBACK ; cd / ; rm -f -r ) > ttyx where ttyx was a logged in root. In this case, depending upon the terminal, the person at that terminal might not see anything until the line echo ESC LOOPBACKOFF > ttyx is sent. At lease with biff y set, you get an indication that something is comming to your screen and when it doesn't, well you know something is wrong. But, yes. You are correct in that someone could mail you a bomb. Armando Stettner DEC UEG ----------------------------------------------------------------- gopher://quux.org/ conversion by John Goerzen of http://communication.ucsd.edu/A-News/ This Usenet Oldnews Archive article may be copied and distributed freely, provided: 1. There is no money collected for the text(s) of the articles. 2. The following notice remains appended to each copy: The Usenet Oldnews Archive: Compilation Copyright (C) 1981, 1996 Bruce Jones, Henry Spencer, David Wiseman.