[Tutor] cgi poison detection kit

[Kirk Bailey]

WELL, I was thinking about how evil data can trip up the unwary cgi script
author by means of an evil hacker sending in assorted escapes and other datum in
a form's input. shell scripts are NOTORIOUSLY susceptible to this, but python is
not immune. So I decided to build a function to detect evil data and abort the
program if found.

But what is evil data?

Well, let's try the paranoia express approach; any data which is not KNOWN to be
safe should be considered potentially dangerous and discarded.

def snifftest(couldbeshit):      # we pass a string for testing to the function,
	for lump in couldbeshit: # examine EACH char in the string passed to the
function,
		if lump not in
"""abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyzABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ0123456789_- """:
			sys.exit("Bullshit!") # this line executes if we smell a whiff...
# else we simply return and execution continues.

Alas, I have an uninhibited mind, forgive me.
Might this be a candidate for useless python?



-- 

end

Respectfully,
             Kirk D Bailey


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