SECURITY BUG IN INTERACTIVE UNIX SYSV386

[Steve Nuchia]

In <1991Feb19.015227.26159 at nuchat.sccsi.com>, I wrote
>> Unmitigated bullshit.

To which came the reply:

In article <54805 at bigtex.cactus.org> james at bigtex.cactus.org (James Van Artsdalen) writes:
>oh?  I see you haven't thought the problem through yet.
...
>Now, think about sdb, and then propose a solution.

Yeah ok, I forgot about the debugger.  One more reason why you'd
really like to have the emulator keep its data in the u area.
It would be possible to fix the debugger -- it isn't like it
is portable code anyway -- but yuk.

>Remember, we're not out to remove things from the u block, only to
>make sure that important things aren't writable.  Those are very
>different goals.

The point I intended to make, which was obscured by my ill-considered
phrasing, was that any number of convenience or performance  considerations
can never justify leaving a security hole like that open.

>Also, remember that Sean is talking about SCO's *solution*, which
>already works and is in the field.  Until yours is implemented and
>working, don't be so quick to criticize.

Hmmm... I reread his article and couldn't see how you figure that.  I
must have missed some context.  It looked to me like he was justifying
the continued existence of the hole on the grounds that the u area
is the "proper" place to put the FP registers.  The only indication in
the article to which I responded that Sean did not mean it as a justification
was his quote marks around "proper".

Sorry about the noise.

-- 
Steve Nuchia	      South Coast Computing Services      (713) 964-2462
	"Innocence is a splendid thing, only it has the misfortune
	 not to keep very well and to be easily misled."
	    --- Immanuel Kant,  Groundwork of the Metaphysic of Morals