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Grex > Info > #89: How much will the "!w" let others know about you? | |
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carson
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How much will the "!w" let others know about you?
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Dec 28 23:51 UTC 1993 |
I ran a "!w" today at the "Ok: " prompt and noticed that instead of
seeing "trn" as a "what" entry, I saw "trn (newsgroup deleted)". Is this a
change, or have I just not noticed it before? I think it'd be kind of
embarrassing if someone were to run the "!w" command while I'm over in
"alt.sex.bestiality.barney", even though I'm most likely doing something
kosher. ("alt.sex.bestiality.barney" was a bogus example; we don't receive
it yet, and I'd probably stick to "alt.tv.barney" anyway, but I need an
example to make my point.) Thoughts?
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| 43 responses total. |
remmers
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response 1 of 43:
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Dec 29 00:46 UTC 1993 |
There's been no change, but don't worry. You probably invoked trn
by typing 'trn <name-of-newsgroup>'. When you run a command, Unix
stores the command name *and any parameters you supply* in a table
which is accessed and displayed with the 'w' and 'ps' commands.
If you don't want people to know what newsgroup you're in, type
'trn' with no parameters and 'go' to the newsgroup once you're inside
trn. That way, 'w' will just report that you're running trn.
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carson
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response 2 of 43:
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Dec 29 03:11 UTC 1993 |
Thanks. The person I had "!w"'d must have been pretty eager to get to that
icular newsgroup... not me! I'll always use "!trn"!
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robh
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response 3 of 43:
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Dec 29 07:10 UTC 1993 |
Yep, it's amazing, some of the things you find out about people with
the w command. Actually, I'm thankful - it was running a w command
and seeing someone using a program called "elm" that got me to start
using it.
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vidar
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response 4 of 43:
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Dec 29 15:45 UTC 1993 |
Ow.
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ziggy
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response 5 of 43:
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Dec 29 16:26 UTC 1993 |
I've been using elm for a while now, it's faster than Pine, yet better than
mail.
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steve
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response 6 of 43:
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Dec 30 20:23 UTC 1993 |
Actually, if you want to discuss the implications of finding out
what people do/think, try looking at their .newsrc file. I know of
a place in town that, once they were on the net, had some interesting
problems once it was known that some of the technical folk there read
"Those" kinds of newsgroups.
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kentn
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response 7 of 43:
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Dec 30 21:34 UTC 1993 |
There are ways of fooling finger and w and who...
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vidar
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response 8 of 43:
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Dec 30 21:38 UTC 1993 |
Yup.
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carson
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response 9 of 43:
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Dec 31 09:01 UTC 1993 |
re #7: how? is that something that the general user could learn? I already
avoid "!trn"-ing specific newsgroups, but I haven't checked my .newsrc
file to see what it says, if anything. Tell us more, please.
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remmers
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response 10 of 43:
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Dec 31 13:24 UTC 1993 |
It's a file in your home directory that newsreader programs like trn use
to keep track of what newsgroups you subscribe to and what articles you've
read. To view it, type "!cat .newsrc" at the next prompt. It's normally
world-readable, so other users can look at a person's .newsrc to see what
newsgroups the person has been doing lately.
I don't think it will break anything if you depermit reading of .newsrc
by others. To do this, type "!chmod og-r .newsrc".
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davel
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response 11 of 43:
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Dec 31 13:38 UTC 1993 |
I wouldn't expect it to break anything, but it's also possible that it won't
do any good. .newsrc is renamed and recreated every time you run trn, and
the permissions may be reset when this happens - or it may use the permissions
of the old one; I've never tried it. (But most likely it just uses your
umask when it creates the new one, I think.)
A possibly simpler solution would be to create a directory to which no one
else has rights, move your .newsrc and .oldnewsrc and your news dirs under
*that*, and go there every time you run trn. (Or is there something else,
like some environment variable, that you'd need or want to set?)
Note that what people see if they use finger or w may not be what you expect
in any case, if what you run calls some other program. People running mail
or elm or the bbs with an editor set can commonly be seen running vi or
whatever on some file or other in /tmp as they compose their material.
Kent, I also am interested in what you said in #7. Say on, please. Purely
abstract curiosity, of course.
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gregc
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response 12 of 43:
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Dec 31 17:04 UTC 1993 |
Or just change your umask to 077.
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mju
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response 13 of 43:
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Dec 31 18:53 UTC 1993 |
trn uses your home directory to store your .newsrc and .oldnewsrc
files by default, but this can be changed through a trn flag.
(No, I'm afraid I don't remember which one, and I don't have a
convenient way of looking at the manpage right now.)
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ziggy
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response 14 of 43:
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Dec 31 23:29 UTC 1993 |
I don't need to fool people I'm only in clean conferences.
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vidar
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response 15 of 43:
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Dec 31 23:41 UTC 1993 |
Define "clean" as you intend to mean it.
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kentn
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response 16 of 43:
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Jan 2 19:34 UTC 1994 |
This is not a foolproof method, but will distract the idly curious
and the Unix-inept (like most bosses and coworkers):
#include <stdio.h>
main()
{
execl ("/usr/ucb/ftp", "vi test.tex", (char *) NULL);
}
I'd like to know of a better way, if one exists.
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carson
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response 17 of 43:
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Jan 2 19:52 UTC 1994 |
This response has been erased.
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remmers
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response 18 of 43:
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Jan 2 22:06 UTC 1994 |
Re #16: You're exploiting a special property of ftp there...
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ziggy
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response 19 of 43:
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Jan 2 23:25 UTC 1994 |
very good.
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carson
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response 20 of 43:
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Jan 3 00:27 UTC 1994 |
I count myself among the Unix-inept. If I go to a Unix prompt, do I enter the
contents of #16 on one line? Also, I've noticed that some people who shell
have their shell listed instead of what they're actually doing. Perhaps if
I moved to a shell other than Picospan...?
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srw
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response 21 of 43:
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Jan 3 00:32 UTC 1994 |
No carson, #16 was a c program. It needs to be compiled and loaded,
then it will be a program that does what he wants. kentn left those
juicy bits out.
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popcorn
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response 22 of 43:
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Jan 3 04:08 UTC 1994 |
This response has been erased.
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kentn
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response 23 of 43:
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Jan 3 06:13 UTC 1994 |
Yes, I left out a lot of juicy bits, but then I'm not the expert at this
and others around here are. It works for programs other than ftp (I
use it for trn, for example). You'll have to improvise. I'd also like
to know how to read command line parameters into such a program, so
for example, one could use it to disguise sz usage.
Anyway, you compile it with cc or gcc to get an executable (compile
everything between "#include" and "}" inclusive). As shown in :16
it will look like you're using vi when you're actually using ftp, though
I hear it's possible to get more direct information on a job's status
than what w, who, or finger give, therefore this method can be defeated.
A better place to discuss (or ask) about this sort of thing would
be in the jellyware conf.
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davel
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response 24 of 43:
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Jan 3 12:05 UTC 1994 |
It's not anything about ftp, it's using a property of the exec() family
of functions, that (many of them, anyway) allow you to give one name for
what's running and specify a different name as what actually is called.
Hm. Cute idea, Kent. I think that if you tried to set this up to be
called with a command line, then that command line (besides showing up
briefly even with w) would be available to ps. Someone with more experience
with these functions in this environment may correct me. You could work
around this by setting your umask to disallow read access to others, creating
a temp file with your command line, and making the program read its parameters
from that, I think. But I'm not really sure what all might show up.
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