*BSD News Article 11022


Return to BSD News archive

Received: by minnie.vk1xwt.ampr.org with NNTP
	id AA1159 ; Tue, 23 Feb 93 14:28:23 EST
Newsgroups: comp.unix.bsd
Path: sserve!manuel.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!uunet!UB.com!pacbell.com!sgiblab!spool.mu.edu!agate!doc.ic.ac.uk!pipex!demon!gtoal
From: gtoal@pizzabox.demon.co.uk (Graham Toal)
Subject: Re: "*" with DES (Was: Re: *Big* security leak for users w/o crypt.)
Message-ID: <C29F6D.8vr@demon.co.uk>
Sender: news@demon.co.uk
Nntp-Posting-Host: pizzabox.demon.co.uk
Organization: Cuddlehogs Anonymous
References: <1993Feb6.110834.27698@ghost.dsi.unimi.it> <1993Feb10.132529.14595@prism.poly.edu>
Date: Thu, 11 Feb 1993 01:08:36 GMT
Lines: 17

In article <1993Feb10.132529.14595@prism.poly.edu> kapela@prism.poly.edu (Theodore S. Kapela) writes:
:In article <1993Feb6.110834.27698@ghost.dsi.unimi.it> serini@ghost.dsi.unimi.it (Piero Serini) writes:
:>
:>I use a DES implementation which accepts "*" as a valid character.
:>So, passwords are encrypted, "secure" accounts have both "**" as
:>password and "/dev/null" as shell. I think It's enough.
:
:The encryption routine may accept a * as a legal char for the password, but
:it most likely does *NOT* use it in the encrypted string  (Have you seen
:a "*" buried among the chars in the encrypted password?).  The encrypted
:"key" is also a fixed length (usually 56 bits) (also making it impossible
:to encrypt to a single "*").

Duh... does that mean he's just told the world the passwords to his secure
accounts?  Or did he perhaps mean he set the encrypted entries to '**'?

G