[Date Prev][Date Next][Thread Prev][Thread Next][Author Index][Date Index][Thread Index]

Re: [zzdev] Re: [zzdev] Re: [zzdev] File extension: fly in ointment



On Tue, Oct 06, 1998 at 02:45:16PM +1000, Gossamer wrote:
> Ted Nelson wrote:
> > Unforch CNS say they don't want ZZ files to open
> >  automatically from the whatchamacallit table.
> >  Say it's a security risk.
> 
> Umm, xanni, can you translate this?  :)

Yeah, I can see why they feel that way.  Since zigzag cells can contain
perl code which can do anything the user can do, it would be trivial to
write trojans using zigzag that would do almost anything malicious when
certain cells were executed.  Of course, users should probably look at
the cell contents before executing them.  Since Zigzag doesn't execute
any cell contents automatically at present, only when requested by the
user, this is not a severe risk as it is with MS Word or Excel.

Cheers,
	*** Xanni ***
-- 
mailto:xanni@xxxxxxxxxx                         Andrew Pam
http://www.xanadu.com.au/                       Technical VP, Xanadu
http://www.glasswings.com.au/                   Technical Editor, Glass Wings
http://www.sericyb.com.au/sc/                   Manager, Serious Cybernetics
P.O. Box 26, East Melbourne VIC 8002 Australia  Phone +61 3 96511511