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Re: Virussssss... Good to know
Danny Dory wrote:
>
> It's high time subscribers to this list restrict their messages to somewhat
> plausible subjects.
>
> DD
>
> At 07:34 AM 12/24/96 +0200, you wrote:
> >Hi all,
> >
> >This is Virus warning, Good to know even if it's not Linux.
> >
Actually, while I still believe that this virus is fictional, one of the
infamous viruses of the pre-PC age, has been a virus which attacked
through EMail. It used a bug in sendmail that did not check its buffer
size and just assumed the message will fit. It was specifically designed
to a certain UNIX architecture and just overwrote the code following the
buffer and thus gained access to a root owned program. The authors of
the virus were prosecuted, but one of them was related to one of the
designers of the operating system and it was rumoured that he was the
actual originator of the virus. That's the story as I've heard it round
the campfire, and that's the reason why while I certainly think the
latest "virus warning" is fictional, I do not think so severe a flaming
as Mark's is appropriate (but then I think that most flames are
inappropriate). By the way if restrictions are the characteristic of a
moderated list, in a non-moderated list it is called suggestions
followed by flames.
Yuval
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