[Techtalk] Security question and dungeons (really weird message)

[jennyw]

I got a weird message:

"Suddenly the dungeon collapses. You die." or something a lot like it.  I
don't know if it's a weird error message or if my machine has been
compromised.  JennV on IRC suggested I shut down the box until I can get
someone who knows how to check out compromised systems to look at it.  
Problem is: 1) I don't know that I know anyone who both can and would be
willing to do so for me; 2) I'm not sure which box it is (see below) and
both are DNS servers -- taking both down would be a problem;  and 3) Even
someone who's dealt with compromised systems before might not catch
something really subtle.

Anyway, here's the context:

I was doing a few things at once. I was running GNOME and had a terminal
window open with an ssh session to a screen session on another computer. I
also had Galeon open and was just starting to get CUPS working (thanks to
Akkana!). Suddenly, I noticed that my video was very funny. Lines were
appearing on the monitor like there was some weird redraw problem.  Then I
noticed the shell window -- it had the "Suddenly the dungeon collapses!  
You die." message

I rebooted and things seemed okay.  I tried printing and it worked without
weird video problems.  I tried ssh'ing back to the other computer and
noticed the screen session was dead (never seen that before) so I thought
maybe it was screen that had the problem with the dungeon and the video
thing was an unrelated glitch.  Of course, someone could have broken into
either box (hard to know which) and done something bad.

I did think about reinstalling the OS, but I don't want to because if
there is something weird going on, I'd like to find it.  Also, if it was
compromised, unless I know how they got in, I won't be able to stop it
again.

Any advice?

Thanks!

Jen