Info-Atari16@SCORE.STANFORD.EDU (Info-Atari16 Digest) (11/03/86)
Info-Atari16 Digest Monday, November 3, 1986 Volume 86 : Issue 2
This weeks Editor: Bill Westfield
Today's Topics:
LIMIT ON TOTAL NUMBER OF FILES ON AN ST DISK ??
micro-C-shell and MT-C-shell
Re: UNITERM
Re: Volume of net traffic
Re: UNITERM V1.5C PART 3 OF 4 (UNITERM.B)
Re: copy protection flame
phreakers
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: 0 0 00:00:00 EDT
From: "V5130B::MENTON" <menton@v5130b.decnet>
Subject
: LIMIT ON TOTAL NUMBER OF FILES ON AN ST DISK ??
To: "info-atari16" <info-atari16@su-score>
Reply-To: "V5130B::MENTON" <menton@v5130b.decnet>
Is there a limit on the total number of files on an ST disk, either
single-sided or double-sided?
While copying over 200 FORTRAN subroutines from an IBM PC/AT to
a VAX to the ST (total bytes well below the capacity of a SS disk), the
file copy bombed at about 111 files. This same limit was reached (same
error message, something about a file not being opened to write ??) when
the destination disk was formatted DS. I tried to copy an additional file
to the disk, to see if it was a limitation of the XMODEM program. Nope -
same error message - the disk would just not take another file, even though
it was well below its max capacity.
Any thoughts on why this happened would be appreciated. I don't
remember reading about a limit to the number of file names on an ST disk,
analogous to the 64-file limit with the 8-bit Atari disk drives.
Bob Menton
MENTON@NRL
Buckaroo Banzai: "Take the wheel. It drives like a truck".
John Parker: "Good. What is a truck?"
------------------------------
From: mcvax!lasso!didier@seismo.CSS.GOV
Date: Fri Oct 31 17:07:41 GMT+1:00 1986
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
Subject: micro-C-shell and MT-C-shell
Would some kind soul give me a serious description on the uCshell and MTCshell
packages ? The names are fairly suggestive, but I wonder how functionnaly
close to a Unix csh they may be. In particular, are they of any serious use for
systems without a hard disk ?
Are we talking freebees here, or are they $old (price ?) ?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Didier Giralt LAAS-CNRS
7 av du Colonel Roche
...!seismo!mcvax!inria!lasso!didier 31077 Toulouse Cedex
France
------------------------------
Date: 29 Oct 86 12:05:10 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!reading!minster!martin@seismo.css.gov
Subject: Re: UNITERM
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
Did anyone in the UK get a working copy of UNITERM? I'm told that it
was distributed in 4 parts, but we saw none of these. If anyone has it
and would be willing to send it to me, could they please let me know by
mail? Did this program, which everyone says is very good, actually reach
Europe or the UK?
Martin
PS.
Apologies to those outside Europe, to whom this may not be
very interesting.
usenet: mcvax!ukc!minster!martin
surface:
Martin C. Atkins
Department of Computer Science
University of York
Heslington
York Y01 5DD
ENGLAND
------------------------------
Date: 30 Oct 86 18:31:53 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!bath63!pes@seismo.css.gov (Paul Smee)
Subject: Re: Volume of net traffic
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
I'm not convinced that 'descriptions and mail to requesters' would actually
cut the net traffic. At present (bar accidents) net stuff crosses the Atlantic
once (to Holland, innit?), crosses the Channel once, and so on. A separate
trans-Atlantic posting to each requestor would pretty obviously crank the
transmitted bitcount right up.
Similar arguments, of course, apply to non-international posting. Also,
I think that this net has a higher connectivity than 'pure user mail',
so that solution would leave lots of people out, I spect.
Better, the idea (is it reelly going to happen) of a separate meeting for
the software, so that them as don't want it can more easily miss it out.
------------------------------
Date: 30 Oct 86 18:57:08 GMT
From: mcvax!ukc!dcl-cs!bath63!pes@seismo.css.gov (Paul Smee)
Subject: Re: UNITERM V1.5C PART 3 OF 4 (UNITERM.B)
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
Sigh. Someone up there doesn't want me to have UniTerm 1.5c. Our site
finally received parts 1, 2, and 3 of the 16th (19th? it's scrolled off
my screen) posting of 1.5c. Assuming that the part 3 I got earlier was
correct (got it twice, and they both matched) the new part 3 was savagely
truncated =678 lines, missing about 600 if I counted right. Part 2
('A') was also chopped off short. So, I've now got
Part 1 Read Me
Part 2 ('A') 1 bad copy (truncated)
Part 3 ('B') 2 good copies and one bad (truncated)
Part 4 ('C') 1 good copy
Of course this all assumes that the Parts were all the same each time.
Anyone with UK PSS or JANET access (or US ARPA) willing to trade a part A
for one of my spare part B's :-).
JANET: Smee at AUCC
ARPA: Smee at AUCC via UCL-CS.ARPA
(in whatever syntax your favorite mailer uses for at's and via's)
------------------------------
Date: 31 Oct 86 19:01:49 GMT
From: amdahl!drivax!holloway@csvax.caltech.edu (Bruce Holloway)
Subject: Re: copy protection flame
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
In article <246@bath63.UUCP> pes@ux63.bath.ac.uk (Paul Smee) writes:
>I had a go at copying the Epyx disk. It appears to work, but when you
>try to run the copy, you get put into what appears to be an infinite
>'put disk A into drive A; put disk B into drive A' loop. I actually
>gave that a try for a bit over 80 swaps, figuring that, since they hadn't
>said it was copy-protected, they might have simply made it 'unattractive'
>to copy by requiring that you somehow 'validate' the 80 tracks individually.
>Finally decided that's not the case. It annoyed me enough to decide that
>I think I'll try to crack that one, though.
I copied Rogue over to my hard disk, and it runs fine from there, although
it requires the original disk in 'A'... it just accesses it for a couple
of seconds. Also, you can only save files to the original disk! But at
least the loading time is slashed, especially for those l-o-n-g picture
files.
--
....!ucbvax!hplabs!amdahl!drivax!holloway
(I'm not THAT Bruce Holloway, I'm the other one.)
------------------------------
Date: 31 Oct 86 10:45:13 GMT
From: ihnp4!chinet!cabbie@ucbvax.Berkeley.EDU (Richard Andrews)
Subject: phreakers
To: info-atari16@score.stanford.edu
This is an article that I found. Read it and weep.
Rich Andrews
...ihnp4!chinet!cabbie
by
John "C". Sucilla
This sucker is pretty long (287 lines). I just downloaded it from Plantz'z
machine and thought it might be a good idea to make it available here.
I have no idea if this is for real or not at this time. I hope not!
The Night of the Hackers
________________________
. As you are surveying the dark and misty swamp you come across what
appears to be a small cave. You light a torch and enter. You
have walked several hundred feet when you stumble into a bright
blue portal. . . With a sudden burst of light and a loud
explosion you are swept into . . . DRAGONFIRE . . . Press Any Key
. You have programmed your personal computer to dial into
Dragonfire, a computer bulletin board in Gainesville, Texas. But
before you get any information, Dragonfire demands your name, home
city and phone number. So, for tonight's tour of the electronic
wilderness you become Montana Wildhack of San Francisco.
. Dragonfire, Sherwood Forest (sic), Forbidden Zone,
Blottoland, Plovernet, The Vault, Shadowland, PHBI and scores of
other computer bulletin boards are hangouts of a new generation of
vandals. These precocious teenagers use their electronic skills to
play hide-and-seek with computer and telephone security forces.
Many computer bulletin boards are perfectly legitimate: they
resemble electronic versions of the familiar cork boards in
supermarkets and school corridors, listing services and providing
information someone out there is bound to find useful. But this
is a walk on the wild side, a trip into the world of underground
bulletin boards dedicated to encouraging -- and making --
mischief.
. The phone number for these boards are as closely guarded as a
psychiatrist's home telephone number. Some numbers are posted on
underground boards; others are exchanged over the telephone. A
friendly hacker provided Dragonfire's number. Hook up and you see
a broad choice of topics offered. For Phone Phreaks -- who delight
in stealing service from AT&T and other phone networks .
Phreakenstein's Lair is a potpourri of phone numbers, access codes
and technical information. For computer hackers -- who dial into
other people's computers -- Ranger's Lodge is chock-full of phone
numbers and passwords for government, university and corporate
computers. Moving through Dragonfire's offerings, you can only
marvel at how conversant these teen-agers are with the technical
esoterica of today's electronic age. Obviously they have spent a
great deal of time studying computers, though their grammar and
spelling indicate they haven't been diligent in other subjects.
You are constantly reminded of how young they are.
. "Well it's that time of year again. School is back in session
so let's get those high school computer phone numbers rolling in.
Time to get straight A's, have perfect attendance (except when
you've been up all night hacking school passwords), and messing up
you worst teacher's paycheck."
. Forbidden Zone, in Detroit, is offering ammunition for hacker
civil war -- tips on crashing the most popular bulletin-board
software. There also are plans for building black, red and blue
boxes to mimic operator tones and get free phone service. And he
re are the details for "the safest and best way to make and use
nitroglycerine," compliments of Doctor Hex, who says he got it
"from my chemistry teacher."
. Flip through the "pages." You have to wonder if this
information is accurate. Can this really be the phone number and
password for Taco Bell's computer? Do these kids really have the
dial-up numbers for dozens of university computers? The temptation
is too much. You sign off and have your computer dial the number
for the Yale computer. Bingo -- the words Yale University appear
on your screen. You enter the password. A menu appears. You hang
up in a sweat. You are now a hacker.
. Punch in another number and your modem zips off the touch
tones. Here comes the tedious side of all of this. Bulletin boards
are popular. No vacancy in Bates Motel (named for Anthony Perkin's
creepy motel in the movie "Psycho"); the line is busy. So are 221
B. Baker Street, PHBI, Shadowland and The Vault, Caesar's Palace
rings and connects. This is different breed of board. Caesar's
Palace is a combination Phreak board and computer store in Miami.
This is the place to learn ways to mess up a department store's
anti-shoplifting system, or make free calls on telephones with
locks on the dial. Pure capitalism accompanies such anarchy,
Caesar's Palace is offering good deals on disc drives, software,
computers and all sorts of hardware. Orders are placed through
electronic mail messages.
. 'Tele-Trial': Bored by Caesar's Palace, you enter the number
for Blottoland, the board operated by one of the nation's most
notorious computer phreaks -- King Blotto. This one has been busy
all night, but it's now pretty late in Cleveland. The phone rings
and you connect. To get past the blank screen, type the secondary
password "S-L-I-M-E." King Blotto obliges, listing his rules: he
must have your real name, phone number, address, occupation and
interests. He will call and disclose the primary password, "if you
belong on this board." If admitted, do not reveal the phone number
or the secondary password, lest you face "tele-trial," the King
warns as he dismisses you by hanging up. You expected heavy
security, but this teenager's security is, as they say, awesome.
Computers at the Defense Department and hundreds of businesses let
you know when you've reached them. Here you need a password just
to find out what system answered the phone. Then King Blotto asks
questions -- and hangs up. Professional computer-security experts
could learn something from this kid. He knows that ever since the
414 computer hackers were arrested in August 1982, law-enforcement
officers have been searching for leads on computer bulletin
boards.
. "Do you have any ties to or connections with any law
enforcement agency or any agency which would inform such a law
enforcement agency of this bulletin board?"
. Such is the welcoming message from Plovernet, a Florida board
known for its great hacker/phreak files. There amid a string of
valid VISA and MasterCard numbers are dozens of computer phone
numbers and passwords. Here you also learn what Blotto means by
tele-trial. "As some of you may or may not know, a session of the
conference court was held and the Wizard was found guilty of some
miscellaneous charges, and sentenced to four months without
bulletin boards." If Wizard calls, system operators like King
Blotto disconnect him. Paging through bulletin boards is a test of
your patience. Each board has different commands. Few are easy to
follow, leaving you to hunt and peck your way around. So far you
haven't had the nerve to type "C," which summons the system
operator for a live, computer-to-computer conversation. The time,
however, however has come for you to ask a few questions of the
"sysop." You dial a computer in Boston. It answers and you begin
working your way throughout the menus. You scan a handful of dial-
up numbers, including one for Arpanet, the Defense Department's
research computer. Bravely tap C and in seconds the screen blanks
and your cursor dances across the screen.
. Hello . . . What kind of computer do you have?
. Contact. The sysop is here. You exchange amenities and get
"talking." How much hacking does he do? Not much, too busy. Is he
afraid of being busted, having his computer confiscated like the
Los Angeles man facing criminal changes because his computer
bulletin board contained a stolen telephone-credit-card number?
"Hmmmm . . . No," he replies. Finally, he asks the dreaded
question: "How old are you?" "How old are YOU," you reply,
stalling. "15," he types. Once you confess and he knows you're
old enough to be his father, the conversation gets very serious.
You fear each new question; he probably thinks you're a cop. But
all he wants to know is your choice for president. The chat
continues, until he asks, "What time is it there?" Just past
midnight, you reply. Expletive. "it's 3:08 here," Sysop types. "I
must be going to sleep. I've got school tomorrow." The cursor
dances "*********** Thank you for Calling." The screen goes blank.
Epilog:
. A few weeks after this reporter submitted this article to
Newsweek, he found that his credit had been altered, his drivers'
licence revoked, and EVEN HIS Social Security records changed!
Just in case you all might like to construe this as a 'Victimless'
crime. The next time a computer fouls up your billing on some
matter, and COSTS YOU, think about it!
_______________________________
. This the follow-up to the previous article concerning the
Newsweek reporter. It spells out SOME of the REAL dangers to ALL
of us, due to this type of activity!
_______________________________
The REVENGE of the Hackers
_______________________________
. In the mischievous fraternity of computer hackers, few things
are prized more than the veil of secrecy. As NEWSWEEK San
Francisco correspondent Richard Sandza found out after writing a
story on the electronic underground's (DISPATCHES, Nov. 12, 198\
ability to exact revenge can be unnerving. Also severe....
Sandza's report:
. "Conference!" someone yelled as I put the phone to my ear.
Then came a mind-piercing "beep," and suddenly my kitchen seemed
full of hyperactive 15-year-olds. "You the guy who wrote the
article in NEWSWEEK?" someone shouted from the depths of static,
and giggles. "We're going disconnect your phone," one shrieked.
"We're going to blow up your house," called another. I hung up.
. Some irate readers write letters to the editor. A few call
their lawyers. Hackers, however, use the computer and the
telephone, and for more than simple comment. Within days, computer
"bulletin boards" around the country were lit up with attacks on
NEWSWEEK's "Montana Wildhack" (a name I took from a Kurt Vonnegut
character), questioning everything from my manhood to my prose
style. "Until we get real good revenge," said one message from
Unknown Warrior, "I would like to suggest that everyone with an
auto-l modem call Montana Butthack then hang up when he answers."
Since then the hackers of America have called my home at least
2000 times. My harshest critics communicate on Dragonfire, a
Gainesville, Texas, bulletin board where I am on teletrial, a
video-lynching in which a computer user with grievance dials the
board and presses charges against the offending party. Other
hackers -- including the defendant --post concurrences or
rebuttals. Despite the mealtime interruptions, all this was at
most a minor nuisance; some was amusing, even fun.
. FRAUD: The fun stopped with a call from a man who identified
himself only as Joe. "I'm calling to warn you," he said. When I
barked back, he said, "Wait, I'm on your side. Someone has broken
into TRW and obtained a list of all your credit-card numbers, your
home address, social-security number and wife's name and is
posting it on bulletin boards around the country." He named the
charge cards in my wallet.
. Credit-card numbers are a very hot commodity among some
hackers. To get one from a computer system and post it is the
hacker equivalent of making the team. After hearing from Joe I
visited the local office of the TRW credit bureau and got a copy
of my credit record. Sure enough, it showed a Nov. 13 inquiry by
the Lenox (Mass.) Savings Bank, an institution with no reason
whatever to ask about me. Clearly some hacker had used Lenox's
password to the TRW computers to get to my files (the bank has
since changed the password).
. It wasn't long before I found out what was being done with my
credit-card numbers, thanks to another friendly hacker who tipped
me to Pirate 80, a bulletin board in Charleston, W.Va., where I
found this: "I'm sure you guys have heard about Richard Stza or
Montana Wildhack. He's the guy who wrote the obscene story about
phreaking in NewsWeek Well, my friend did a credit card check on
TRW . . . try this number, it' a VISA . . . Please nail this guy
bad . . . Captain Quieg.
. Captain Quieg may himself be nailed. He has violated the
Credit Card Fraud Act of 1984 signed by President Reagan on Oct.
12. The law provides a $10,000 fine and up to a 15-year prison
term for "trafficking" in illegally obtained credit-card account
numbers. He "friend" has committed a felony violation of the
California computer-crime law. TRW spokeswoman Delia Fernandex
said that TRW would "be more than happy to prosecute" both of
them.
. TRW has good reason for concern. Its computers contain the
credit histories of 120 million people. Last year TRW sold 50
million credit reports on their customers. But these highly
confidential personal records are so poorly guarded that
computerized teenagers can ransack the files and depart
undetected. TRW passwords -- unlike many others -- often print out
when entered by TRW's customers. Hackers then look for discarded
printouts. A good source: the trash of banks and automobile
dealerships, which routinely do credit checks. "Everybody hacks
TRW," says Cleveland hacker King Blotto, whose bulletin board has
security system the Pentagon would envy. "It's the easiest." For
her her part, Fernandez insists that TRW "does everything it can
to keep the system secure
. In my case, however, that was not enough. My credit limits
would hardly support big-time fraud, but victimization takes many
forms. Another hacker said it was likely that merchandise would be
ordered in my name and shipped to me -- just to harass me. I used
to use credit-card numbers against someone I didn't like," the
hacker said. "I'd call Sears and have a dozen toilets shipped to
his house."
. Meanwhile, back on Dragonfire, my teletrial was going strong.
The charges, as pressed my Unknown Warrior, include "endangering
all phreaks and hacks." The judge in this case is a hacker with
the apt name of Ax Murderer. Possible sentences range from exile
from the entire planet" to "kill the dude." King Blotto has taken
up my defense, using hacker power to make his first pleading: he
dialed up Dragonfire, broke into its operating system and
"crashed" the bulletin board, destroying all of its messages
naming me. The board is back up now, with a retrial in full swing.
But then, exile from the electronic underground looks better all
the time.
+----------------------------------------------+
| END of COLOSSUS NEWSLETTER Issue 3, Volume 1 |
| Please upload to MANY boards! |
+----------------------------------------------+
(Chuck: Whew!)
(Ed: My fingers cramped again!)
Dave I.
I'm not surprised. If *I* ever get my hands on one of these little theives,
I'll show him or her how a professional can scramble their silicon...
Seriously, I don't know how anyone expected something different. We can
teach kids all the tech skills necessary to do these things, but it's
just not considered part of either the formal curriculum, or a parent's
duty, to teach a sense of ethics about use of such skills. I once let
loose on a bunch of students at U of W who were on the system staff; they
considered it perfectly OK to read anyone's electronic mail that passed
through their machine, or between students and professors. Not only that,
but if you annoyed one of them, you might find your files munged or missing.
By the time I got through, I'm sure that they got my message. Don't believe
for a moment that they'd do anything about it, but they knew that when they
got out into the 'real world', if they ever did something like that and I
caught them, they'd be fired--or worse.
Oh, well...this is just one of my sore points. These twits are going to ruin
it for all the rest of us, unless we police them ourselves...
meg
We get a few phreakers or hackers on M-Net now and then, at least they
claim to be, mostly we drive 'em out by means of some 'practical jokes'
we engineer, that and a combination of the fact that Mike states every
where and anywhere that if anyone comes investigating, all his files
and stuff are open and for the record. That usually keeps it at a
minimum, and they are never around long enough to cause any trouble on
the board, nor do anything illegal.
Was interesting tho, a conversation I had with someone who professed to
be a hacker, no longer on M-Net, and his absolute conviction that what
he was doing was perfectly alright and he honestly believed no one had
a right to complain. I was completely dumbfounded, myself.
rob
Anyone have any ideas of how we can rid the computer world of these
types? It's always the bad who receive publicity...
Arthur F.
I hate to say it, but business should have adopted a different equivalent of
the ASCII code for transfering data
jjw
Easiest way to rid the world of these is to have intelligent people in charge
of setting up security in the first place, followed by more intelligent people
using it.
I had my share of this s**t at Harper College, where a bunch of local phreaks
thought they could run the system out from under the school. I did them one
better - joined the school and ran it as secure as I could make it (within the
limits that the school itself imposed).
Some general ideas - y'all remember a few years ago the kid that broke into
DePauls system? I knew him, and the other guy who helped was my friend's cousin
(both sorta twits). It helped that DePaul kept last years password list as
a readable ascii file, open to public inspection. Seems they used 3 character
passwords. Also, the first letter was between A and M. Took about 20 minutes to
break through. When they changed it, the new password followed the same format.
The program that allegedly did so much damage had been around for several
months. All the authorities denied that it could possibly crash the system, and
refused to listen to me when I told them. Eventually, HP came up with a fix
that took care of it, but DePaul somehow didn't think it needed that fix.
I'd kind of like to make the sys administrators liable for damages on any
system that gets broken into. It would encourage them to take much better care
in designing the security.
Oh, also, on my home BBS system (not yet up, but getting there slowly), I have
a sure way to prevent anybody from getting through. Even supposing that they
can crash the program, the modem's hooked up to the serial printer port. I do
*all* my own i/o, and if it crashes, they're not a console, they're a printer
and the system ignores them. Also, I am *not* going to allow so-called 'sysop'
stuff to be done from within the system. To do these functions, you'll have
to be physically in my apt, at my terminal, running programs outside of the
bbs system. The worst I can come up with would be to bring each user down,
but even that won't let anybody do anything un-cool.
kji
I like the idea of the i/o through the serial printer stuff. I could
throw up a board in not time if I only had the smart modem. Have all
the programs setup with tons of pd stuff, but no $ for the modem.
jcs
Here's an idea for twit control: Uzi's & Mac 10's are rarely argued with.
bhv
If kids can get into the credit bureaus, imagine what the professionals
can do. It seems to me that the credit bureaus are the weak link in the
chain, and it would be better to work on increasing their security than
to try and police every kid in existence.
greg
I have little worry of a serial port of any kind being turned into a tty
controlling the system since {there's no way to control the mouse via
that port.. and even if they could, they couldn't see what they were doing
anyway..
Problem solved...
rlk
I don't think the credit agencies themselves are bad, its the clients
who don't maintain security of their passwords. I've seen several
places where access passwords were taped to the wall over the
terminal, and the terminals were in public access areas so that
everyone 'knew' the shop was computerized. One place must have
had a nearsighted operator, 'cause the password had been written
using a magic marker. You could read it from the lobby.
pgy
There is also the other extreme of security. I'm currently working on
a team programming project for which we have a librarian who maintains
among other things, the include files for the system. I came in today
and reran the make file for my current sub project. I was immediately
informed that cc could not find the include files. I thought that
perhaps the files had been reorganised (this is something I've been
told to expect soon). But upon further investigation, I found that
read permission for the world had been removed from the include
directory. In order to access these files I had to newgrp to the
special group which only the librarian defaults to, and then re-run
the make. It was a small annoyance, but it was an an
annoyance. These files are most decidedly NOT secret -- there was no good
reason to take read permissions off of that directory. Especially in a
development environment, security should be only as tight as necessary.
jcs
There is a new guy in our department who was doing the same thing.
He had post-its with logins & passwords for all the Indian Hill machines
we use hanging all around his terminal. He even had his login/password
for our machine embedded in his function keys. It took about 10 minutes
to convince him that we WOULD use his login to wreak havoc on his files
if he didnt get rid of the stuff. He cleaned up his act in a hurry!
LMHY:
Sounds like you could use the Change Management System (CMS) available
from Bell Labs. It would make everybody's life easier there.
CMS=Change Management System.
Let's say you have a product that consists of N directories
with a couple hundred source files involved (ours consists of a few thousand
files). You have X number of developers working full time on the product
and the files are in a constant state of flux. Under CMS, only one developer
can modify a file(s) at a time. All other developers are denied access to
the file(s) until he is done with it. There are typically three "nodes"
available to the CMS user. 1) The "Official" node - where the last release
was generated from. 2) The "Approved" node - where files are kept after
they have been approved by the test team and before an integration has
been performed. Integration moves the files from approved to official.
3) The "Local" node - where changes are made and proved in by the developer.
Here is a simplified scenario of a change:
Programmer jcs needs to change x.c for some reason. He generates an MR
(modification request). Once the MR is approved by commitee (if there is one)
and assigned he gets the latest version of the file from the official node.
Thats right, SCCS is involved here. He makes the required changes to the file
and builds the product in his local node. The build command utilizes
a viewpath which tells build where to look for the files it needs to create
the product. If the viewpath looked like this -
VPATH=/prod/ofc:/prod/appr:/prod/localnode
build would first search /prod/ofc for the files it needs then look in
/prod/appr for any missing files then /prod/localnode. If a file in
/prod/localnode is newer than a matching file in the other nodes it is
used instead. Now that the product is built, the developer checks it out
on whatever hardware it was built for and once he's satisified with it
he passes it on to the test team. If the test team kisses the change,
the change is moved into the approved node and eventually into the
official node.
For large projects, CMS can't be beat. It's a logical way to synchronize
changes and prevent a lot of unnecessary confusion.
For small projects it's probably a lot easier to rap the bozo next door
in the head for screwing around with your struct than it is to justify CMS.
CMS is available from Bell Labs.
Back to original topic for...
I find it hard to get worked up if someone looks through my files. I think
damaging (deleting/changing/encrypting/etc) files is a different matter.
I dunno, but I certainly think your 'anti-hacker/phreak' stance is a bit
more extreme then warranted.
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End of Info-Atari16 Digest
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