From: kak@hico2.westmark.com (Kris A. Kugel)
Subject: Re: Hayes Press Release: High-Density Rack Communications System
Reply-To: kak2@hico2.westmark.com
Organization: High Country Software
X-Newsreader: Tin 1.1 PL5
Date: Wed, 7 Oct 1992 14:47:33 GMT

Vernon Schryver (vjs@rhyolite.wpd.sgi.com) wrote:
: In article <BvMGyB.Kt5@news.udel.edu>, radel@bach.udel.edu (Todd Radel) writes:
: > In article <6126.2acf0655@hayes.com> tnixon@hayes.com writes:
: > >
: > >                                              FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
: > >                                                        H-2492XXXAT
: >                                                                ^^^
: > Gee...looks like a "TIES bomb" to me.  What do you all think?
: 
: 					     (I changed the +s to Xs.)
: 
: 
: Good point.  Someone from Hayes should comment immediately.
: 
: In the absense of a convincing explanation that the intent of that
: string was not to cause mischief, to kill modems on links not running
: precompressed news, or to crash modems for people remotely reading
: news, their UUCP and mail feeds should make threatening noises.  The
: network posse would be called out for a denial of service attack from
: Joe College.  The same standards should apply to all organizations and
: individuals.  
: 
: Could some lawyer comment about "malicious mischief" and similar such
: crimes?  Might the new federal laws apply?
: 
: Unless Hayes and Mr. Nixon have an explanation at least as good as
: "oops, that was only supposed to be in the test file," I think they
: should be dealt with summarily, but individually by each of us
: according to our individual judgement, without consultation with each
: other.  Do not suggest any organized action, since I understand the
: putative organizers of things like boycotts can get in trouble.  It's
: probably best for each of us to not even say what actions we might
: individually take.  This could get messy legally.
: 
: The previous implications from Mr. Nixon about not wanting to comment
: on a press release by his employer do not apply.  This superficially
: appears to be a willful act of sabotage, given Hayes's claims about the
: danger of the string.  No reasonable professional will knowingly
: cooperate in such an act.
: 
: 
: Of course, the fact that there has not been a great hue and cry about
: that string suggests that Hayes has in fact grossly exaggerated danger
: of "TIES".
: 
: 
: Vernon Schryver,  vjs@sti.com


I missed the conversation about "TIES", so maybe the below is off base. 
________________________________________________________________________

In the great usenet tradition of "flying off the handle", 
we have another flamefest going.

To restore some rationality, I'll first ask,

	"has anybody SEEN any problems as a result of this?"

One would assume a sequence of '+'s  would be natural in many
types of material to be sent by modem, and so it would make sense
if modems handled this well.

In fact, in my Trailblazer manual, it says,

	"... An escape sequence contains three consectutive escape characters
	 (defined by the S2 register) separated from other characters
	 by a guard time (specified by the S12 register).

	 The modem switches to command mode only after you enter an escape
	 sequence with the proper guard time...."

On my system, the guard time default is one second.
Kind of a long delay to appear by random event.

Now, not all Hayes-compatible modems are trailblazers,
and we don't know the intent of the original posters.

Still, LET'S SEE SOME PROBLEMS RESULT before we talk about malicious.

Kris A. Kugel	908-842-2707
hico2!kak	kak@hico2.westmark.com