good points, Christian! more and more, networks are becoming flooded with X traffic. although X has always been known to be a potential security hole, i think X-attacks are going to increase dramatically in the coming months. i commonly hear of sights with Xauthority enabled, only to have the user community type "xhost +" at the prompt. bad karma. the days of pumping rude & crass noises to someone else's workstation will soon graduate to more nefarious and insidious attacks. is anyone looking into a means of securing X (above and beyond the current weak solutions)? regards, --robert -- o robert owen thomas: unix consultant. cymro ydw i. user scratching post. o o e-mail: Robert.Thomas@pamd.cig.mot.com --or-- robt@cymru.com o o vox: 708.435.7076 fax: 708.435.7360 o o "When I die, I want to go sleeping like my grandfather... o o Not screaming like the passengers in his car." o