ddb <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
> Russ Allbery <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> writes:
>> I'd like to back this up, and point out here that too much Microsoft
>> bashing on this one is misplaced. This particular attack is not
>> Microsoft-specific in any way other than having happened to be written
>> against a widely used Microsoft applciation; the property that it needs
>> to be effective is a document viewer with an embedded macro language in
>> which macros are executed by default.
> Yes, but...who except Microsoft markets such an application?
No one that I know of, since Microsoft doesn't execute macros by default.
The user has to set it up that way. (Except for the case of secure
documents, which although a justifiable design decision I'd still consider
a mistake.) If you mean the more general case of who markets an
application that has an embedded macro language whose macros can run when
a document is opened, Richard Stallman would be another person. :)
> This prevents automatic running of macros when you open a document --
> EXCEPT when the document comes from a trusted source, which includes any
> document you had to specify a password to open.
Yup. Interesting post to BUGTRAQ about that (except with Excel).
> If document macros ran in a limited environment analagous to the Java
> sandbox, things would be a lot safer.
Has *Java* even gotten their sandbox right? Sure, I agree with you, but
again I don't think this is a problem specific to Microsoft. Users are
demanding all their software works together to make it easier to use, and
users don't want to understand how the application works in order to use
it. (I suppose *some* of that is Microsoft's fault for creating huge and
bloated applications, but the same thing happens in Unix.)
Hence the demand for macros to do things for them. Hence the unchecking
of security checkboxes so that they don't have to think about where they
got a document from. Hence the fact that the word processor can control
their mail program in the first place (because heaven forbid they have to
understand the difference between a word processor and an e-mail program;
it should just all work together so that they don't have to think about
it).
Microsoft is a seriously broken company that's done a lot of evil in the
world, but this specific problem I place square at the feet of the
prevelant attitude of "don't try to make me understand what I'm doing,
just make it work."
--
Russ Allbery ([EMAIL PROTECTED]) <URL:http://www.eyrie.org/~eagle/>
