BSD tty security, part 3: How to Fix It

[Kartik Subbarao]

In article <1991May6.112302.27896 at prl.dec.com> boyd at prl.dec.com (Boyd Roberts) writes:
>In article <235 at harem.clydeunix.com>, wes at harem.clydeunix.com (Wes Peters) writes:
>> 
>The problem is that the user should be able to specify a program to run that
>displays the ``write'' information in the way the user likes.  I guess such
>a thing would register with a server (security problem #1) and say here I
>am to take care of any writes for user X.  It then talks a protocol with
>any incoming write and displays the information the way the user wants.

>
>UNIX write(1) is small and simple.  It does the job in a friendly environment.
>It was not written to deal with boofheads who'd cat /dev/universe | write ...

Exactly -- I don't see any need in changing a silly simple program like
write. So what if you get a humongous message from someone -- yay. just go lynch
him, and ask him politely not to do it in the future. Most people get over
'nethack | write /dev/ttyp6' pretty soon in their unix learning. (Then
again, it seemed to take me a bit longer :-)) 


			-Kartik


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