bnick@aucis.UUCP (Bill Nickless) (02/28/89)
Is it possible, with AT&T System V UNIX, for a system administrator, (or more importantly, a hacker who has gained root privelege) to monitor character I/O on a tty line? What about a rlogin session? We do not want this capability available on our system, however, we would like to know if and how it is implementable so that we can know what to look for and to protect against. Also, reasons why it may or may not be difficult would be interesting as well. The situation is this: some of the faculty would like access through the department's UNIX system to the campus administrative system. The campus administrators have a concern that a line might be monitored from within the UNIX system such that sensitive information such as grades and other personal information could be compromised. This monitoring capabiliity is present on the administrative, non-UNIX system, and is relatively easy to implement on that system (or so I've been told). To my knowledge it has not been done on our system. Is this a valid concern for a UNIX system? Or is it more likely someone will do a hardware intercept on a RS-232 line? Please send mail, I will post a summary or respond to mail. -- Bill Nickless Andrews University Computer Science Department ...!sharkey!aucis!bnick or bnick@aucis.UUCP Unix Support Group "Help! I'm locked up in this .signature factory!"