Skip site navigation (1)Skip section navigation (2)
Date:      Tue, 9 Oct 2001 09:55:22 -0500
From:      GB Clark II <gclarkii@vsservices.com>
To:        Lowell Gilbert <lowell@world.std.com>, freebsd-chat@FreeBSD.ORG
Subject:   Re: code density vs readability
Message-ID:  <0110090955220A.07185@prime.vsservices.com>
In-Reply-To: <44d73xt0y9.fsf@lowellg.ne.mediaone.net>
References:  <9ptk3o$14kg$1@FreeBSD.csie.NCTU.edu.tw> <44d73xt0y9.fsf@lowellg.ne.mediaone.net>

next in thread | previous in thread | raw e-mail | index | archive | help
On Tuesday 09 October 2001 08:09, Lowell Gilbert wrote:
> 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.
>
>
> To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
> with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message
Hi,

There was at one time a hole in emacs that would let you write system files.  
This was about 8 or 9 years ago I belive.

GB

-- 
GB Clark II             | Roaming FreeBSD Admin
gclarkii@VSServices.COM | General Geek 
           CTHULU for President - Why choose the lesser of two evils?

To Unsubscribe: send mail to majordomo@FreeBSD.org
with "unsubscribe freebsd-chat" in the body of the message




Want to link to this message? Use this URL: <https://mail-archive.FreeBSD.org/cgi/mid.cgi?0110090955220A.07185>