*BSD News Article 23047


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Xref: sserve comp.protocols.misc:2733 comp.os.386bsd.misc:1332
Newsgroups: mv.forum.online,comp.protocols.misc,comp.os.386bsd.misc
Path: sserve!newshost.anu.edu.au!munnari.oz.au!news.Hawaii.Edu!ames!agate!howland.reston.ans.net!sol.ctr.columbia.edu!news.kei.com!world!mv!kaikow
From: kaikow@mv.mv.com (Howard Kaikow)
Subject: Interpretation of text as a command by communications software
Keywords: communications, terminal, zmodem, SZ, 386BSD, Crosstalk
Organization: MV Communications, Inc.
Date: Sat, 30 Oct 1993 05:24:24 GMT
Message-ID: <CFp30p.AHH@mv.mv.com>
Summary: Text is interpreted as an invocation of zmodem
Lines: 42

Crosstalk appears to have a "feature" that is rather annoying. It is unclear
to me where this is documented.

When using Crosstalk Communicator to talk to a unix system (either 386BSD
or Sun OS, I've tried it on both), typing ~rz, immediately followed by the
return character, whilst in mail, causing the PC to want to send a file
via zmodem to the unix system.

I expect that the following are ways around this:

1. I've done this. Type any character after the ~rz and then backspace over
   the extra character before hitting return.

2. ~r z likely will work, but I have not yet tried it.

3. Perhaps, or maybe not, changing the mail escape to, say, . will avoid 
this.

4. Don't try to include a file named z with the ~r command in mail.

NOTE: This problem occurs even if the ~rz is not at the start of the line.
      For example, if te Subject line contains ~rz, the zmodem operation is
      attempted right away.

Do any of you know why this happens?


Bulletin!

I just discovered the following.

I just created a file named rz on a 386BSD system by downloading it from 
my PC.

Much to my astonishment, when I then did an ls -la, zmodem got invoked on
my PC when the ls -la got to the file named rz!!!

Does this imply that it is something on the unix side interpreting the 
bytes on the terminal as a command? Seems rather messy, but interesting.