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As I understand it, back doors were (and presumably, still are) created by
programmers as a convenience. They use them because it's quicker for getting into a system than going through the login procedure and all the other entries necessary for gaining access to the code when they want to fix bugs, make modifications, etc. As I said, they're just a convenience but they have to be kept secret so hackers can't use them to gain access (as they undoubtedly have at times). Back in the late 1980s I heard about a prankster who, when designing a large company's software, added some code that at random times would freeze all of the company's terminals and display the following message: *Hello. Can I have a cookie?* Their entire system remained locked with this message on all of their screens until, after what must've been a lot of trial and error, someone discovered you could unlock the computers by entering "*Here. Have a cookie*." After that, the system would return to normal until the next time. As the story goes, the code was so deeply embedded in their software that it was cheaper to just instruct all of their employees on the proper response than to dig through millions of lines of code to fix it. Might be apocryphal but it's amusing. 73, Mac AB3RV On Mon, Mar 24, 2025 at 1:50?AM Gary H Thompson via groups.io <garythomjw= [email protected]> wrote: If you read it again, you will see that I said what a back door is, I |
