3 ms·

Years ago in school, maybe about 1992 or so, I managed to make xdm (X Display Manager) crash and dump me a root window by simply holding down a key until the bu

Years ago in school, maybe about 1992 or so, I managed to make xdm (X Display Manager) crash and dump me a root window by simply holding down a key until the buffer ran out. I remember wondering how anybody didn't discover this before me. Similar behavior with the university phone system (repeatedly pressing '0') eventually dropped me an outside line that I didn't have to pay for (yes, for you young folks, we used to have to pay for long distance phone calls, on phones that didn't fit in our pockets).

merlinscholz 4y ago
Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25843874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25843874
- technothrasher 4y ago
  Good to know the new guard is still leading the fight :)
- Thorrez 4y ago
  And another one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7531140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7531140
spullara 4y ago
When I was a teenager, I got dropped into a shell on a VAX by doing the same thing when it was trying to identify the terminal type.
hawski 4y ago
I always suspect that software I'm using is not really tested. If there are animations or whatever is happening asynchronously monkey bashing will trigger lots of issues.
joseda-hg 4y ago
I seem to remember that a few years ago some versions of either TouchWiz or Android, that you could overflow into unlocking the phone. The number required was pretty high, but you could get to it by copy pasting an already typed (In the emergeny dialer) number for a while, crashing the lockscreen until the next reset
- karlding 4y ago
  Sounds like CVE-2015-3860 [0]. [0] https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-3860 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-3860
hnick 4y ago
You just reminded me what we found in college (on campus). We could dial out to the other college, then back into ours, and then externally to get free long distance calls.
dredmorbius 4y ago
I've had a stint or two doing QA. At one such position (reasonably well-known product within the tech world), there was clear pushback not to file bugs of this nature. I didn't stick with that position long.

merlinscholz 4y ago

Related: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25843874 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=25843874

technothrasher 4y ago
Good to know the new guard is still leading the fight :)
Thorrez 4y ago
And another one: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7531140 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7531140

spullara 4y ago

When I was a teenager, I got dropped into a shell on a VAX by doing the same thing when it was trying to identify the terminal type.

hawski 4y ago

I always suspect that software I'm using is not really tested. If there are animations or whatever is happening asynchronously monkey bashing will trigger lots of issues.

joseda-hg 4y ago

I seem to remember that a few years ago some versions of either TouchWiz or Android, that you could overflow into unlocking the phone. The number required was pretty high, but you could get to it by copy pasting an already typed (In the emergeny dialer) number for a while, crashing the lockscreen until the next reset

karlding 4y ago
Sounds like CVE-2015-3860 [0]. [0] https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-3860 https://nvd.nist.gov/vuln/detail/CVE-2015-3860

hnick 4y ago

You just reminded me what we found in college (on campus). We could dial out to the other college, then back into ours, and then externally to get free long distance calls.

dredmorbius 4y ago

I've had a stint or two doing QA. At one such position (reasonably well-known product within the tech world), there was clear pushback not to file bugs of this nature. I didn't stick with that position long.