I wonder what Reeds meant. I know there are issues. For example, the 3B2 I administered for a while in the late 80s had multiple accounts with rsh, the restricted shell, as the login shell. That was okay, unless you used su and then had access to a root shell.

HP/UX was way worse, with over 120 SUID shell scripts in the 90s. A much more interesting example of insecurity. But somehow, I'm guessing that's not what Reeds wrote about.

Rik

On Wed, Jan 1, 2025 at 8:02 AM Douglas McIlroy <douglas.mcilroy@dartmouth.edu> wrote:

I have it and will try to scan it in the next few days. Bug me if it
doesn't appear.

Doug

On Tue, Dec 31, 2024 at 11:37 AM Chet Ramey <chet.ramey@case.edu> wrote:
>
> On 12/29/24 8:44 AM, Douglas McIlroy wrote:
> > I can supply a copy if no one else has beaten me to it.
> >
> > Ron Hardin subsequently pushed the limit even further. Unfortunately,
> > I do not have a record of that work.
>
> Along these same lines, does anyone on the list have a copy of
>
> "J. A. Reeds, /bin/sh: The biggest UNIX security Loophole,
> 11217-840302-04TM, AT&T Bell Laboratories, Murray Hill, NJ (1984)"?
>
> Years ago, in another lifetime, I wrote and asked him for a copy, but
> never got a reply.
>
> --
> ``The lyf so short, the craft so long to lerne.'' - Chaucer
> ``Ars longa, vita brevis'' - Hippocrates
> Chet Ramey, UTech, CWRU chet@case.edu http://tiswww.cwru.edu/~chet/