Re: uudecode bug (?)

[martin f krafft]

also sprach Colin Watson <address@hidden> [2002.06.10.1917 +0200]:
> If you want to close the race condition properly, I suggest creating a
> new directory with secure modes, checking that the creation succeeded,
> and uudecoding the file there (providing you've checked that it doesn't
> unpack to an absolute path specification). mkdir() is atomic, so you are
> safe. Adding a special-case check to uudecode for this is a very poor
> hack around the race condition.

right. i actually agree. i still don't dig that it should be okay.

> I don't think this is any more of a security problem in uudecode than
> the fact that 'echo text >> filename' follows symlinks. Scripts that
> call uudecode may be buggy, but they should clearly be fixed; do we
> believe that the sort of installer script Dr. Bieringer quotes as
> uudecoding to a well-known filename in a world-writable directory uses
> no other standard tools in insecure ways?

you have a point. not only echo text >> filename follows symlinks,
even the truncating version >| does.

let me sleep this over. it sounds like it's not really a bug. but
something's not letting me just let go...

-- 
martin;              (greetings from the heart of the sun.)
  \____ echo mailto: !#^."<*>"|tr "<*> mailto:"; address@hidden
  
anyone around? -- no, we're all irregular polygons.

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