Re: "Flash"??
der Mouse (mouse@Collatz.McRCIM.McGill.EDU)
Fri, 19 Aug 1994 06:31:15 -0400
> The program forges a talk request and sends VT100 escape codes to
> cause the users screen to become unreadable.
> Two defenses are:
> Block talk from the border router (not usually a desirable option and
> will not protect you from internal "attacks")
> Turn off talk requests (mesg n)
A third: use (or emulate) a terminal that doesn't understand the escape
sequences in question.
If someone hits me with that program, for example, I'll see c(0#8,
[1;3r[J, and [5m[?5h...because my mterms will not do anything with the
ESC characters. (Unless I happen to have one set to ANSI emulation,
which I rarely do.)
Besides, it doesn't do that much. It resets the terminal, switches to
graphics and fills the screen with EEEEs, sets a scrolling region of
the top three lines, clears the screen, turns on blinking (for further
text), and turns on reverse video for the whole screen. (Except for
the reset, the screen clear, and the blinking, they're all DEC
extensions to X3.64.) I rather wonder why the screenful of EEEEs, when
a moment later the screen is cleared, but it's not my program.
der Mouse
mouse@collatz.mcrcim.mcgill.edu