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Re: There is an ugly Word zero day out there today

Started by"Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com>
First post2017-04-11 15:45 +0800
Last post2017-04-28 20:34 -0700
Articles 9 — 6 participants

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  Re: There is an ugly Word zero day out there today "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2017-04-11 15:45 +0800
    Re: There is an ugly Word zero day out there today Steve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net> - 2017-04-11 10:06 +0200
      Re: There is an ugly Word zero day out there today "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2017-04-11 19:14 +0800
    Re: There is an ugly Word zero day out there today Diesel <me@privacy.net> - 2017-04-13 01:29 +0000
      Re: There is an ugly Word zero day out there today "Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com> - 2017-04-17 02:45 +0800
        Re: There is an ugly Word zero day out there today jim.j.barlow@gmail.com - 2017-04-18 23:09 -0700
          Re: There is an ugly Word zero day out there today Richard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk> - 2017-04-19 07:16 +0100
            Re: There is an ugly Word zero day out there today David Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no> - 2017-04-19 09:38 +0200
            Re: There is an ugly Word zero day out there today jim.j.barlow@gmail.com - 2017-04-28 20:34 -0700

#7706 — Re: There is an ugly Word zero day out there today

From"Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com>
Date2017-04-11 15:45 +0800
SubjectRe: There is an ugly Word zero day out there today
Message-ID<oci1dd$me$3@dont-email.me>
On 11/04/2017 5:28 AM, T wrote:
> http://www.infoworld.com/article/3188626/security/word-zero-day-affects-all-versions-of-office-and-windows.html 
> 
> 1)  Don't open any word doc's from unknown sources
> 2)  use word's protected mode, whatever that is

Why not just receive plain text files, no other formats? :)

-- 
   @~@   Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch! Live long and prosper!!
  / v \  Simplicity is Beauty!
/( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you!
   ^ ^   (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10)  Linux 2.6.39.3
不借貸! 不詐騙! 不援交! 不打交! 不打劫! 不自殺! 請考慮綜援 (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_pubsvc/page_socsecu/sub_addressesa

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#7707

FromSteve Hayes <hayesstw@telkomsa.net>
Date2017-04-11 10:06 +0200
Message-ID<453pecdcppaa3sgt7rpdtl8tb3vth6p07p@4ax.com>
In reply to#7706
On Tue, 11 Apr 2017 15:45:43 +0800, "Mr. Man-wai Chang"
<toylet.toylet@gmail.com> wrote:

>On 11/04/2017 5:28 AM, T wrote:
>> http://www.infoworld.com/article/3188626/security/word-zero-day-affects-all-versions-of-office-and-windows.html 
>> 
>> 1)  Don't open any word doc's from unknown sources
>> 2)  use word's protected mode, whatever that is
>
>Why not just receive plain text files, no other formats? :)

Yup.

That's what I do. 

But one of the offenders in that respect are the people at
BitDefender, who wanted me to register to continue using their
antivirus program. But in order to register, I would have to disable
the built-in virus protection on my mail reader. I thought that if
they wanted me to do that, the couldn't know all that much about virus
protection themselves. 


-- 
Steve Hayes
http://www.khanya.org.za/stevesig.htm
http://khanya.wordpress.com

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#7708

From"Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com>
Date2017-04-11 19:14 +0800
Message-ID<ocidkh$f2q$1@dont-email.me>
In reply to#7707
On 11/04/2017 4:06 PM, Steve Hayes wrote:
> But one of the offenders in that respect are the people at
> BitDefender, who wanted me to register to continue using their
> antivirus program. But in order to register, I would have to disable
> the built-in virus protection on my mail reader. I thought that if
> they wanted me to do that, the couldn't know all that much about virus
> protection themselves.

Did you tell them to send some forms plain? :)

-- 
   @~@   Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch! Live long and prosper!!
  / v \  Simplicity is Beauty!
/( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you!
   ^ ^   (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10)  Linux 2.6.39.3
不借貸! 不詐騙! 不援交! 不打交! 不打劫! 不自殺! 請考慮綜援 (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_pubsvc/page_socsecu/sub_addressesa

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#7709

FromDiesel <me@privacy.net>
Date2017-04-13 01:29 +0000
Message-ID<XnsA755DC0B6E0E6HT1@z66n21828VjwLZ4893rG40b5sOkJ96M.twwX.6U4>
In reply to#7706
"Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com>
news:oci1dd$me$3@dont-email.me Tue, 11 Apr 2017 07:45:43 GMT in
alt.comp.freeware, wrote: 

> On 11/04/2017 5:28 AM, T wrote:
>> http://www.infoworld.com/article/3188626/security/word-zero-day-af
>> fects-all-versions-of-office-and-windows.html 
>> 
>> 1)  Don't open any word doc's from unknown sources
>> 2)  use word's protected mode, whatever that is
> 
> Why not just receive plain text files, no other formats? :)
> 

ROFL. Who, seriously, didn't see this coming? Those who don't learn 
from history (Melissa virus anyone?) will most certainly be repeating 
it.


-- 
I would like to apologize for not having offended you yet. 
Please be patient. I will get to you shortly.

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#7712

From"Mr. Man-wai Chang" <toylet.toylet@gmail.com>
Date2017-04-17 02:45 +0800
Message-ID<od0dur$di8$1@dont-email.me>
In reply to#7709
On 13/4/2017 9:29 AM, Diesel wrote:
> 
> ROFL. Who, seriously, didn't see this coming? Those who don't learn
> from history (Melissa virus anyone?) will most certainly be repeating
> it.

I would not be surprised that many kids don't even know what a plain 
text file is. They would need to understand what HTML formatting codes 
are. Well... you never know... :)

-- 
   @~@   Remain silent! Drink, Blink, Stretch! Live long and prosper!!
  / v \  Simplicity is Beauty!
/( _ )\ May the Force and farces be with you!
   ^ ^   (x86_64 Ubuntu 9.10)  Linux 2.6.39.3
不借貸! 不詐騙! 不援交! 不打交! 不打劫! 不自殺! 請考慮綜援 (CSSA):
http://www.swd.gov.hk/tc/index/site_pubsvc/page_socsecu/sub_addressesa

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#7718

Fromjim.j.barlow@gmail.com
Date2017-04-18 23:09 -0700
Message-ID<df1ea720-c00f-4818-9949-bc2dca99288b@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#7712
What would you think when a professional programmer has software that produces log files with the filename ending in ".txt" that contain bytes with the value of "0"?
I contend it is no longer a text file. The vendor refused to correct the behavior.

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#7719

FromRichard Heathfield <rjh@cpax.org.uk>
Date2017-04-19 07:16 +0100
Message-ID<od6v5v$5c4$1@dont-email.me>
In reply to#7718
On 19/04/17 07:09, jim.j.barlow@gmail.com wrote:
> What would you think when a professional programmer has software that
> produces log files with the filename ending in ".txt" that contain
> bytes with the value of "0"? I contend it is no longer a text file.
> The vendor refused to correct the behavior.

There is no law requiring files with a ".txt" extension to be text 
files. And, when everyone was using ".doc" for program documentation 
stored in text files, Microsoft started using the ".doc" extension for 
binary files, but I don't recall you complaining about that.

File extensions are not standardised. Anyone can use any extension for 
any purpose.

About ten years ago, I gave someone a bunch of JPEGs and asked him to 
turn each one into a PowerPoint slide. He solved this difficult task by 
renaming each ".jpg" to ".ppt", and was then appalled to find that for 
some bizarre reason this didn't work.

Never trust a file extension.

-- 
Richard Heathfield
Email: rjh at cpax dot org dot uk
"Usenet is a strange place" - dmr 29 July 1999
Sig line 4 vacant - apply within

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#7720

FromDavid Brown <david.brown@hesbynett.no>
Date2017-04-19 09:38 +0200
Message-ID<od7400$i5j$1@dont-email.me>
In reply to#7719
On 19/04/17 08:16, Richard Heathfield wrote:
> On 19/04/17 07:09, jim.j.barlow@gmail.com wrote:
>> What would you think when a professional programmer has software that
>> produces log files with the filename ending in ".txt" that contain
>> bytes with the value of "0"? I contend it is no longer a text file.
>> The vendor refused to correct the behavior.
> 
> There is no law requiring files with a ".txt" extension to be text
> files. And, when everyone was using ".doc" for program documentation
> stored in text files, Microsoft started using the ".doc" extension for
> binary files, but I don't recall you complaining about that.
> 
> File extensions are not standardised. Anyone can use any extension for
> any purpose.

I used an embedded assembler toolchain that used ".txt" for the binary
output files.  I can't remember the reasoning behind the choice, but
there was /some/ excuse for such an annoying choice.

> 
> About ten years ago, I gave someone a bunch of JPEGs and asked him to
> turn each one into a PowerPoint slide. He solved this difficult task by
> renaming each ".jpg" to ".ppt", and was then appalled to find that for
> some bizarre reason this didn't work.
> 
> Never trust a file extension.
> 

Indeed.  Windows /does/ trust file extensions, and that has been the
source of endless security flaws.

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#7742

Fromjim.j.barlow@gmail.com
Date2017-04-28 20:34 -0700
Message-ID<f5b47209-7a3c-432f-b2e7-19f10bca8ebd@googlegroups.com>
In reply to#7719
Except these were log files and we're supposed to be text files.

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