Serious flaw that lurked in sudo for 9 years hands over root privileges

I posted this earlier about a terrible bug in the "passwd" program on Pyramid OSx:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15802533

>Pyramid's OSx version of Unix (a dual-universe Unix supporting both 4.xBSD and System V) [1] had a bug in the "passwd" program, such that if somebody edited /etc/passwd with a text editor and introduced a blank line (say at the end of the file, or anywhere), the next person who changed their password with the setuid root passwd program would cause the blank line to be replaced by "::0:0:::" (empty user name, empty password, uid 0, gid 0), which then let you get a root shell with 'su ""', and log in as root by pressing the return key to the Login: prompt. (Well it wasn't quite that simple. The email explains.)

(Continued in linked comment. It also includes a link to the story of how Pete earned the nick-name "Gymble Roulette" thanks another fiasco with that same flakey Pyramid 90x.)

Linux is swiss cheese. Back when I had access to Vupen via a shared account the commercial product exploits had an expiration date internally called EOL (End of Life) when disclosure occured. Interestingly the Linux exploits appeared to be perpetual until public disclusure. Some of them were available for over 3+ years. I always assumed it was because of some legal issues. Nobody owns Linux so there is nobody to answer to.