[net.games.hack] security

aeb@mcvax.UUCP (Andries Brouwer) (05/09/85)

As Dhutchin@cs.ucl.AC.UK pointed out hack contains the following
security bug. At the start of a game a file is created with as
filename the loginname of the player. If he is called 'data' or
'rumors' or 'hack' then you are in trouble.
In fact it is even worse. One of the options allows you to
choose your playing name, and one might choose '../../something'
as name, and destroy whatever hack has write access to.

The fix is easy and obvious, but since this happens in a place
in the source where my current version is rather different from
the distributed one I'd rather wait till the next release.
If you are really concerned (You occupy the first place on the
list of topscorers and are afraid that one of your students
might blow away the score file) then ask for the diffs. When
enough people ask I'll post them.