Re: Likely KDE exploit on 4.1

dave wrote:
Clever Monkey <spamtrap@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:
dave wrote:
I now consider it extremely likely that there is a new KDE exploit
which can be exploited on release 4.1. After having trouble with
the mouse cursor having a mind of its own on my system upgraded to
4.1, I reinstalled all of 4.1 + packages from scratch. I then created
a test user and started kde from that user. The cursor immediately
and repeatably started moving counter to my own motion and away
from a button I wanted to click on. Other evidence suggests to me
that an intruder has a control over my desktop, possibly via a
duplicate display. This problem with the mouse makes the entire
X/kde graphics interface unusable for me. Fortunately I can do
almost everything I need to in console mode, although operating without konqueror is painful.

Can you actually see traffic coming in that represents remote display connections? Can you trust all your internal users? That is, if this

I am the only user of this computer. I have not installed any wireless
connection. The problems was resolved not by replacing the mouse,
disconnecting the keyboard, or disconnecting the internet, or reinstalling
OpenBSD(all of which I tried), but by turning the computer off. Since I turned
the computer back on 5 minutes later the mouse has been rock solid. That is a
very big relief to me. I think I need to accelerate my plans to get an
air conditioner.

So, something is flaky in X, the mouse, the hardware or the OS that manifests as occasional weirdness. This seemed the likelier explanation.

is a lab, do you know if someone local is doing something. If someone was coming over the wire (or wireless) you should be able to see the traffic. An easy test is to pull the network connection, or down the net devices and see if the problem persists.

Otherwise, this sounds like X having trouble understanding your mouse. Sometimes X/Y motion is seen backwards when the device was setup funny. At least this is what I used to see on Linux when I used X.

That's an interesting observation. what does 'funny' mean in this context.

X can be a pain to setup. Sometimes big differences can be seen in subtle changes to the config files. It used to be pretty typical for the occasional install (of X; I have no experience with X on a recent release of OBSD) to behave exactly as you describe here.
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