Original Usenet thread from alt.ascii-art, started 12 Nov 1993.
DON'T TRY 'Cow.vt' animation!!!
alt.ascii-art
· 13 messages · 12 Nov 1993 - 13 Nov 1993
***************ALERT********************************************** The animation "cow.vt" that was just posted, in uuencoded form, is dangerous and caused my *Mac* to lock up when uudecoded and catted, remotely, with Zterm. Investigations are underway-- please be aware that this is more dangerous than anyone told us... ******************************************************************
In article <2c14bf$85...@Notwerk.mcs.com> jor...@Notwerk.mcs.com (Jorn Barger) writes: The animation "cow.vt" that was just posted, in uuencoded form, is dangerous and caused my *Mac* to lock up when uudecoded and catted, remotely, with Zterm. I tried it from Zterm on my mac at home (over a 2400 baud modem) and it worked fine. I'm using version 0.85. I'm still typing right now, so unless I'm having illusions it is working fine. Sven
I tried it (on my Sparc using xterm) and it worked for me!
In article <2c14bf$85...@Notwerk.mcs.com> jor...@Notwerk.mcs.com (Jorn Barger) writes: >***************ALERT********************************************** > >The animation "cow.vt" that was just posted, in uuencoded form, is >dangerous and caused my *Mac* to lock up when uudecoded and catted, >remotely, with Zterm. The intelligent observer would not come to such a conclusion, but would realize that _Macs_, not vt100 animations, are dangerous. Amazing-the only 'advanced' operating system that allows its programs to programs to bash each other over the head. Even Windows will at least tell you..... ObAscii: _ / \ \_/ <-benzene H H | | H-C-C-OH | | H H ethanol _ / \_ \_/ \ \_/ napthalene (Yep, I'm busy studying Organic Chemistry for the test Tuesday) -Matt > >Investigations are underway-- please be aware that this is more >dangerous than anyone told us... > >****************************************************************** -- Matthew B Grice mgr...@iastate.edu
>The animation "cow.vt" that was just posted, in uuencoded form, is >dangerous and caused my *Mac* to lock up when uudecoded and catted, >remotely, with Zterm. > >Investigations are underway-- please be aware that this is more >dangerous than anyone told us... I wouldn't get too worried here. You can sneeze wrong and a Mac will freeze on you. Oh, and I'd give the movie vote to either Aliens (the second one) or Reservoir Dogs, if this were a movie discussion group, which is isn't. So ignore this paragraph. :) ObSmiley: [|:-)== (Uncle Sam) -- =========================================================================== Todd Kerpelman | "Looks like we're going to need some more ker...@yale.edu | FBI guys." | --Die Hard
In article <CGE...@news.iastate.edu>, Matthew B Grice <mgr...@iastate.edu> wrote: >The intelligent observer would not come to such a conclusion, but >would realize that _Macs_, not vt100 animations, are dangerous. flamebait flamebait flamebait. Fortunately for all of us, this question was recently definitively answered: == From: khe...@ms.uky.edu (Kenneth Herron) Newsgroups: comp.admin.policy Subject: Re: A question Date: 22 Oct 93 20:39:30 GMT In article <199...@dec8.ncku.edu.tw>, Lin Y. C. <linyc@elephant> wrote: | Which of pc and Mac is best choice ? | I do not know really..... It really depends on what you want to do with it. PCs with their metal construction are better at holding up cars so you can work under them. Macintoshes, on the other hand, won't tire your arm as much when tenderizing meat or mashing potatoes. PCs will hold more charcoal and give you a bigger grilling surface, but some of the high-end Macs are properly shaped for this as well. And for a doorstop, you'd either want a Timex-Sinclair 1000 or and Amiga 500. -- Kenneth Herron khe...@ms.uky.edu University of Kentucky +1 606 257 1429 Dept. of Mathematics "If you ever drop your keys in a river of molten lava, let 'em go because, man, they're gone." == > _ > / \ > \_/ <-benzene Try: /~\ \_/ yer welcome...
> ***************ALERT********************************************** > > The animation "cow.vt" that was just posted, in uuencoded form, is > dangerous and caused my *Mac* to lock up when uudecoded and catted, > remotely, with Zterm. > > Investigations are underway-- please be aware that this is more > dangerous than anyone told us... > > ****************************************************************** It worked fine on my UNIX account... ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Autumnal Equinox Half way between the longest day of the year and the shortest It's the middlest day of the year. And it feels like it. -Red Green Brent Hughes bhu...@sms.business.uwo.ca
Dan noticed that Jorn Barger once wrote: -> ***************ALERT********************************************** -> The animation "cow.vt" that was just posted, in uuencoded form, is -> dangerous and caused my *Mac* to lock up when uudecoded and catted, -> remotely, with Zterm. How in the world could vt100 codes lock up a computer when received through a terminal program? There is no way that is possible. After all, it's only ASCII characters that are being sent across the serial port! I think your problem is that you are using a Mac. -- Dan .----------------=------------------------------------------------------. | da...@cc.ysu.edu | My views and opinions represent those of every | | da...@wbc.com | student and employee of Youngstown State University, | | (216) 562-1110 | and all people residing within 20 miles of campus. | `----------------=------------------------------------------------------'
In article <2c1muk$in...@news.ysu.edu>, Daniel East <s01...@cc.ysu.edu> wrote: >Dan noticed that Jorn Barger once wrote: >-> dangerous and caused my *Mac* to lock up when uudecoded and catted, > > How in the world could vt100 codes lock up a computer when received ^^^^^^^^ As they once said in their commercials, "It's not a computer, it's an Apple." -Dan Ob ascii-"art"-- french kisses :-Pd-: :-bd-:
In article <2c1muk$in...@news.ysu.edu>, Daniel East <s01...@cc.ysu.edu> wrote: > How in the world could vt100 codes lock up a computer when received >through a terminal program? There is no way that is possible. After all, >it's only ASCII characters that are being sent across the serial port! I >think your problem is that you are using a Mac. On certain types of terminals, it is possible for a "text file" to contain a trojan hourse by having it trick the terminal into sending back certain characters. For example, on one brand of VT100-compatible terminals [I don't know whether this exact variant works on a real VT], sending the terminal a ^E will cause it to send the defined "answerback" string. Not too bad, except that the answerback string can be programmed remotely. So one could imbed in Bambi Meets Godzilla [probably near the beginning] commands to set the answerback string to "rm -r ~/*" followed by a ^E. One wouldn't be able to see what the rm was doing until after the animation had played out, at which point it would of course be too late. Similarly, many terminals have remotely defineable keyboards [even DOS's ANSI.SYS driver does], so one could remap the Z key to ^MFORMAT C:^MY^M etc. This is why, btw, PKZIP and the like filter out ANSI when displaying ZIP-comments. So, in response to your question, yes it is possible to send nasty things to many types of terminals. Anyone playing with ANSI art [as opposed to pure ASCII] should be aware of this risk. -- ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- sup...@mcs.com | "Je crois que je ne vais jamais voir... | J\_/L John Payson | Un animal si beau qu'un chat." | ( o o )
In article <2c14bf$85...@Notwerk.mcs.com> jor...@Notwerk.mcs.com (Jorn Barger) writes: >***************ALERT********************************************** > >The animation "cow.vt" that was just posted, in uuencoded form, is >dangerous and caused my *Mac* to lock up when uudecoded and catted, >remotely, with Zterm. > >Investigations are underway-- please be aware that this is more >dangerous than anyone told us... > >****************************************************************** Zterm could use a little rewriting. I've seen it crash from normally harmless ANSI/VT100 codes from a local BBS called The Beeline (608-233-4828). The poster of the cow animation, most positively, did not intend any harm. jon
In article <2c1muk$in...@news.ysu.edu>, s01...@cc.ysu.edu (Daniel East) writes... > > How in the world could vt100 codes lock up a computer when received >through a terminal program? There is no way that is possible. ^S Donald Arseneau asn...@reg.triumf.ca
In article <2c14bf$85...@notwerk.mcs.com>, jor...@Notwerk.mcs.com (Jorn Barger) writes: > >The animation "cow.vt" that was just posted, in uuencoded form, is >dangerous and caused my *Mac* to lock up when uudecoded and catted, >remotely, with Zterm. > >Investigations are underway-- please be aware that this is more >dangerous than anyone told us... > I had tried it myself on an Xterm on Unix/X windows with no such problem. One problem I have noticed with many of these animations is that they do not reset the original screen attributes when finished. Also, cat'ing on animation then another can do weird things. I did this with a couple of them at after wards the screen was displaying a funny character set with just lines instead of characters. Neither of these animations on their own did this, only when they were done on after the other. Perhaps if someone could write a program which could filter out any such 'nasty' escape codes then we would all be a lot happier. Bye, Peter. -----------------===================***====================------------------ stu...@csv.warwick.ac.uk Wizbit -===========================================================================-
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