jef@ace.ee.lbl.gov (Jef Poskanzer) (01/05/89)
This may already be common knowledge, but...
Some terminal emulator programs have an amusing bug. When they see the
text "NO CARRIER" at the beginning of a line, they stop listening to
the modem. Like this:
NO CARRIER
If your emulator has this bug, you are no longer on line, and are not
reading this. Yes, this sounds far-fetched, but I can personally
assure you all that it's not just another chain-letter variation like
the modem virus story. I discovered this on the WELL a while back when
I opened a topic called "NO CARRIER", and then got mail from a user
complaining that whenever he tried to read the topic his modem hung
up. He was not computer-literate enough to have been making a joke.
Recently another user reported the same problem.
This represents a security risk of the denial-of-service type.
Fortunately it's easy to fix -- just toss the buggy terminal program
and get a better one.
---
Jef
Jef Poskanzer jef@rtsg.ee.lbl.gov ...well!pokey
Burma Shave.