/usr/lib/utmp_update musings

[paul () argo demon co uk (Paul Ashton)]

As nobody yet seems to have pointed out: it is trivial to change a utmp
slot to show root or anybody in the entry for a slot pointing to ../tmp/x
as the device, as long as you make a symlink in /tmp/x to point to a
validly owned device that responds to a TCGETA ioctl. Surely this
brings a multitude of problems with it (it did get me root with in.comsatd
in a rather far-fetched way)?

Cheers,
Paul