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Date:      Wed, 30 Oct 1996 18:01:57 -0500 (EST)
From:      "Marc G. Fournier" <scrappy@ki.net>
To:        Joe Greco <jgreco@brasil.moneng.mei.com>
Cc:        Mark Crispin <MRC@CAC.Washington.EDU>, chat@FreeBSD.org
Subject:   Re: /var/mail (was: re: Help, permission problems...)
Message-ID:  <Pine.NEB.3.95.961030175425.8183P-100000@quagmire.ki.net>
In-Reply-To: <199610302213.QAA26662@brasil.moneng.mei.com>

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Hi...

	I'd like to post something that Joe sent me, that fully cleared up
in *my* mind why 1777 is a *very* bad thing.  

	As this is not a problem under FreeBSD, since we don't set our
spools to /var/mail, I do not consider it a breach of security sending
it to the list...hopefully no one else feels otherwise :(

	Oh, and I've moved this to chat, since it isn't really a 'current'
issue...

Marc G. Fournier                                  scrappy@ki.net
Systems Administrator @ ki.net               scrappy@freebsd.org


------

Give me an account on your system, then remove your mail box, and I will
happily demonstrate what a pain in the ass it is when you stop receiving
mail because some jackass decides to "touch /var/mail/scrappy"

It is very effective :-(  The other person CAN NOT even remove the fake
because of the sticky bit...  Watch this

(solaria.jgreco.q0-2) 4:24pm /var/spool/mail 45 > ls -ld .
drwxrwxrwt  2 root         1024 Oct 30 16:22 ./
(solaria.jgreco.q0-2) 4:24pm /var/spool/mail 46 > touch egbert
(solaria.jgreco.q0-2) 4:24pm /var/spool/mail 47 > Mail -v egbert
Subject: Hi Cory!

You will never see THIS!
EOT
(solaria.jgreco.q0-2) 4:24pm /var/spool/mail 48 > mail:
/var/spool/mail/egbert: 
cannot append
mail: cannot open dead.letter
egbert... Service unavailable
Saving message in /usr/u0/jgreco/dead.letter
/usr/u0/jgreco/dead.letter... Sent
rm egbert 
(solaria.jgreco.q0-2) 4:24pm /var/spool/mail 49 > 

How would you like your users to get the following cryptic message
returned to their pen pals:

> --QAA23973.846714401/solaria.sol.net
> 
> The original message was received at Wed, 30 Oct 1996 16:26:41 -0600
> from anacreon.sol.net [206.55.64.116]
> 
>    ----- The following addresses had delivery problems -----
> <egbert@solaria.sol.net>  (unrecoverable error)
> 
>    ----- Transcript of session follows -----
> 554 <egbert@solaria.sol.net>... Service unavailable

when some jerk does:

% cd /var/mail; touch `awk -F: '{print $1}' < /etc/passwd `

See the problem yet?  :-)  :-)  I will be SOOOOOO glad to dump SunOS
finally.





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