[$] What the beep?

A "simple" utility to make a system beep is hardly the first place one wouldcheck for security flaws, but the strange case of the "Holey Beep"should perhaps lead to some rethinking. A Debian advisory for the beep utility, which was followedby another for Debian LTS, led to aseemingly satirical site publicizingthe bug (and giving it the "Holey Beep" name). But that site also exploitsa new flaw in the GNUpatch program-and the increased scrutiny on beep hasled to more problems being found.