naim@eecs.nwu.edu (Naim Abdullah) (02/19/89)
A friend pointed out that there is an undocumented "-s" option
in the 4.3bsd crypt. It apparently sets a 'secureflg' variable
and does something incomprehensible.
What is the purpose and functionality of the -s option to crypt(1) ?
Has it always been there or did Berkeley add it ?
Naim Abdullah
Dept. of EECS,
Northwestern University
Internet: naim@eecs.nwu.edu
Uucp: {oddjob, chinet, att}!nucsrl!naimdce@stan.UUCP (David Elliott) (02/20/89)
In article <13030004@eecs.nwu.edu> naim@eecs.nwu.edu (Naim Abdullah) writes: >What is the purpose and functionality of the -s option to crypt(1) ? >Has it always been there or did Berkeley add it ? I remember it being in 4.2BSD and adding it to the documentation in UTek. All it really does is to modify the key so that the data is encrypted differently. I would guess that the folks at Berkeley were having problems with people looking over their shoulders or running the clist capture program, so they could alias 'crypt' to 'crypt -s' and snoops seeing them type 'crypt' would try without luck. -- David Elliott ...!pyramid!boulder!stan!dce "Splish splash, I was rakin' in the cash" -- Eno