ALERT: possible time-bomb in SunOS

[Dave Platt]

[Apologies for the baroque collection of newsgroups... comp.sys.sun would
 be the appropriate place to post this, but it's moderated and has a
 severe time-lag]

Our site administrator has just received notice of what's said to be a
"confirmed rumor" that there is a time-bomb buried in some current
versions of SunOS (the Sun variant of Unix).  This time-bomb is
reported to be set to trigger tomorrow (Friday the 13th).  It was
suggested that we should either shut down our Sun systems tomorrow, or
alter the date so that the time-bomb doesn't go off.  As we don't know
whether the bomb is of the "go off on the 13th" or "go off on or after
the 13th" variety, it would seem safest to set the system clocks back
rather than forwards.

We have no details at this time about the content of the time-bomb.
The call to our administrator did not come from Sun, but from one of
her contacts at another Sun customer's site;  it was of the "We thought
you should know... more details soon" variety.

It is possible that this rumor, although "confirmed", is actually
mistaken or is a hoax.  So, I apologize in advance to everyone
everywhere if this alert turns out to be a false alarm.

I'll post updates as I receive them, and will cancel this article if this
whole thing turns out to be a false alarm.



-- 
Dave Platt                                             VOICE: (415) 493-8805
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