Re: Backdoor rumor

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Article #189498

#189498

From: marc
Date: Wed, 30 Jan 1991 12:51

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In article <9101251838.AA12154@geech.ai.mit.edu> jym@AI.MIT.EDU (Jym Dyer) writes:

>___
>__  Think how silly this rumor is.  GNU Emacs is distributed with
>_   source.  If there was a backdoor, it would be discovered right
>    away.
>___
>__  There is no greater security than having the source!
>_   <_Jym_>

I'm afraid the above is naive.  A backdoor is like any other bug - its
an unexpected behavior of a program.  No one would think it silly to
expect that GNU Emacs, and in fact any other large program, still has
bugs, no matter how many people have access to the source.

The cracker who broke into the Berkley Lawrence system used an Emacs
back door, if I remember correctly.  I think it had to do with
movemail having too much priviledge and/or not enough checking.
--

Marc Auslander       <marc@ibm.com>

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From: marc@arnor.uucp
Newsgroups: gnu.emacs.help
Subject: Re: Backdoor rumor
Message-ID: <MARC.91Jan30075108@marc.watson.ibm.com>
Date: 30 Jan 91 12:51:08 GMT
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