Buffer overflows to gain remote access to a computer were fairly well known in 1995. "Smashing The Stack for Fun and Profit" (http://phrack.org/issues/49/14.htm

Buffer overflows to gain remote access to a computer were fairly well known in 1995. "Smashing The Stack for Fun and Profit" (http://phrack.org/issues/49/14.html http://phrack.org/issues/49/14.html) came out the following year. Most people weren't really writing network facing code though, so most buffer overflows were as you described. They just resulted in seemingly random crashes.