STORY
Finding the UUX Vulnerability and Emailing Dennis Ritchie
Finding the UUX Vulnerability and Emailing Dennis Ritchie
- During my early career at Tektronix in Beaverton, Oregon, Tektronix operated one of the first ~30 nodes globally on Usenet and served as a vital regional routing hub for the UUCP network.
The Vulnerability Discovery
- While working with Unix networking utilities, I discovered a critical remote code execution vulnerability in
uux(Unix-to-Unix execution) that permitted arbitrary remote code execution on any connected host in the UUCP network.
- While working with Unix networking utilities, I discovered a critical remote code execution vulnerability in
Direct Coordination with Dennis Ritchie (dmr)
- Rather than having to navigate corporate bureaucracy or PR channels, I reached out and exchanged email directly with Dennis Ritchie (
dmr) at Bell Labs to report the vulnerability and coordinate the upstream patch for the Unix/UUCP codebase.
- Rather than having to navigate corporate bureaucracy or PR channels, I reached out and exchanged email directly with Dennis Ritchie (
Historical Context: The 15-Minute Usenet Feed
- In those early days, Tektronix was a crucial networking bridge in the Pacific Northwest connecting to early nodes like
ucbvaxanddecvax. - The entire global Usenet feed could still be read in about 15 minutes a day over morning coffee.
- It was the era right around the invention of the ASCII
:-)smiley (1982) and the pioneering expansion of the global UUCP map.
- In those early days, Tektronix was a crucial networking bridge in the Pacific Northwest connecting to early nodes like
What links here
These facts are as Randal recalls them, but much time has passed for most of this. If you find a factual error, please email realmerlyn@gmail.com.