dplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) (05/13/88)
[Apologies for the baroque collection of newsgroups... comp.sys.sun would
be the appropriate place to post this, but it's moderated and has a
severe time-lag]
Our site administrator has just received notice of what's said to be a
"confirmed rumor" that there is a time-bomb buried in some current
versions of SunOS (the Sun variant of Unix). This time-bomb is
reported to be set to trigger tomorrow (Friday the 13th). It was
suggested that we should either shut down our Sun systems tomorrow, or
alter the date so that the time-bomb doesn't go off. As we don't know
whether the bomb is of the "go off on the 13th" or "go off on or after
the 13th" variety, it would seem safest to set the system clocks back
rather than forwards.
We have no details at this time about the content of the time-bomb.
The call to our administrator did not come from Sun, but from one of
her contacts at another Sun customer's site; it was of the "We thought
you should know... more details soon" variety.
It is possible that this rumor, although "confirmed", is actually
mistaken or is a hoax. So, I apologize in advance to everyone
everywhere if this alert turns out to be a false alarm.
I'll post updates as I receive them, and will cancel this article if this
whole thing turns out to be a false alarm.
--
Dave Platt VOICE: (415) 493-8805
USNAIL: Coherent Thought Inc. 3350 West Bayshore #205 Palo Alto CA 94303
UUCP: ...!{ames,sun,uunet}!coherent!dplatt DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com
INTERNET: coherent!dplatt@ames.arpa, ...@sun.com, ...@uunet.uu.netdplatt@coherent.com (Dave Platt) (05/13/88)
Within the past 20 minutes, I've spoken to two people in Sun's tech-support
department. They report the following:
- They have been running extensive experiments on their in-house machines,
attempting to detect any signs of a "Friday the 13th" time-bomb. So far,
there has been "absolutely no sign" of any such time-bomb.
- They have no information that leads them to believe that any such time-
bomb exists in the code.
- They're not sure where the rumor of the time-bomb originated. It
appears to have first "broken" at about noon PDT (3 PM EDT), and has
spread with extreme rapidity. One of the people to whom I spoke indicated
that he has spoken with "at least 30" contacts across the country.
- There have been no reports from Australia or Japan (where it's already
Friday the 13th) that would indicate the triggering of any time-bombs.
So... at this point, it appears likely that the "Friday the 13th time-bomb"
rumor is just that... a rumor with no facts behind it.
--
Dave Platt VOICE: (415) 493-8805
USNAIL: Coherent Thought Inc. 3350 West Bayshore #205 Palo Alto CA 94303
UUCP: ...!{ames,sun,uunet}!coherent!dplatt DOMAIN: dplatt@coherent.com
INTERNET: coherent!dplatt@ames.arpa, ...@sun.com, ...@uunet.uu.netdave@cs.wisc.edu (Dave Cohrs) (05/13/88)
Re: the totally unsubstantiated rumor about a time-bomb in SunOS.
Great. Let's just rename comp.bugs.4bsd as comp.national.enquirer
and be done with it. Come on, don't scare everyone without some
basis in fact to do so.
Dave Cohrs
+1 608 262-6617 UW-Madison Computer Sciences Department
dave@cs.wisc.edu ...!{harvard,ihnp4,rutgers,ucbvax}!uwvax!dave