XDM has the same problem as netscape ?!

Arve Kjoelen akjoele at shiva.ee.siue.edu
Fri Sep 22 10:42:02 PDT 1995


Ian Goldberg wrote:

>Nelson Minar <nelson at santafe.edu> wrote:
>>Last time I looked, the MIT-MAGIC-COOKIE-1 scheme used in X11R4 had
>>the same problem: the random seed was based on the current time to the
>>microsecond, modulo the granularity of the system clock. I think I
>>figured that on my hardware, if I could figure out which minute the X
>>server started (easy with finger), I'd only have to try a few
>>thousand keys or so. Caveat: I never actually proved the idea.

>Wow.  I just checked, and Nelson's right.
>[ code extracts snipped]

I just checked X11R6, and the same method is used there, so it hasn't changed
since X11R4.

-Arve.







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