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Date:      09 Oct 2001 09:09:02 -0400
From:      Lowell Gilbert <lowell@world.std.com>
To:        freebsd-chat@freebsd.org
Subject:   Re: code density vs readability
Message-ID:  <44d73xt0y9.fsf@lowellg.ne.mediaone.net>
In-Reply-To: tms2@mail.ptd.net's message of "9 Oct 2001 09:32:40 %2B0800"
References:  <9ptk3o$14kg$1@FreeBSD.csie.NCTU.edu.tw>

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tms2@mail.ptd.net ("T.M. Sommers") writes:

> "Gary W. Swearingen" wrote:
> > 
> > j mckitrick <jcm@FreeBSD-uk.eu.org> writes:
> > 
> > > I finally took several people's advice.  I didn't give up VI, but emacs
> > > is amazing for big, complicated jobs.
> > 
> > I've been using only Emacs (actually mostly XEmacs and some small Emacs
> > clones like Jed) for a long time, but recently decided it would be
> > better to try to force myself to use vi for editing as root.  (I learned
> > it 20 years ago and liked the two-mode concept, but I've forgotten all
> > but the very basics.)
> > 
> > I got to worrying about the amount of Emacs code there is and to suspect
> > that much of it changes often and is seen by only a few eyes and am
> > thinking it will be safer from a security standpoint to run vi.
> > 
> > Is that overly paranoid?  Do other people have this concern?  Do many
> > people run XEmacs or Emacs as root on a regular basis?  Does vim have a
> > lot of similarly suspectable code in it too?
> 
> If memory serves, the Great Worm of '88 exploited a security hole in
> Emacs (among other things).

No.  rsh, sendmail, and finger daemons.  No user applications.


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