Re: @(#)Mordred Labs advisory 0x0003: Buffer overflow in

Gavin Sherry <swm@linuxworld.com.au> writes:

> It would be perhaps one of the most impressive hacks ever if someone
> could dream machine code to put in the overrun which consisted
> entirely of printable characters.

At least for the x86 architecture, working ASCII-only shell code
exists (even shell code which consists just of letters!).  See for
example:

http://cert.uni-stuttgart.de/archive/vuln-dev/2000/10/msg00200.html

ASCII-only shellcode for RISC platforms is even harder and might be
impossible.

-- 
Florian Weimer 	                  Weimer@CERT.Uni-Stuttgart.DE
University of Stuttgart           http://CERT.Uni-Stuttgart.DE/people/fw/
RUS-CERT                          fax +49-711-685-5898