[Sussex] What path does one take

[Colin Pickard]

On 10/19/06, ar at f2s.com <ar at f2s.com> wrote:
> > You can take a machine down as a none privilege user with a
> > single shell command.
>
> Pub quiz!
>
> The rules: quotas are set, there are plenty of inodes, exceeding the process
> limit kills the parent, symlink dereferences are limited.... the usual stuff.
>
> Your mission is to find:
>  (1) the simplest command (least reliant on installed s/w)
>  (2) the largest set of techniques we haven't seen before
>  (3) the most concise successful Google search
>
> And may the most twisted mind win!

The following Google search may prove an good starting point:

site:secunia.com linux kernel panic

I'm intrigued to see what people might come up with for this.  In my
experience the GNU/Linux family (let alone broader Unix) is so diverse
that you will never find something that works reliably even across
similar distros of a similar age on similar architectures.

Plus, one of my favourite things about working with Linux systems is
their graceful degrading in response to demanding user processes.  So
a non-privileged user can almost never make a machine unresponsive
even for themselves, let alone others.  Whereas it is simple to reduce
a w32 machine to a state of impotant cursor spinning in the course of
your normal activities.