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Microsoft Word Security Flaw
JWL-23 writes: "cnn.com is reporting that a Microsoft Word flaw may allow file theft. Furthermore, they plan on not fixing Word 97, leaving millions of users out in the cold. Yet another reason to try OpenOffice.org." It still takes more than running Word to expose the contents of your hard drive though.
>Well, that sounds like an excellent motivator to
>try harder to get it right the first time!
Name one major software product that has been bug-free from initial release.
For that matter, name one major software product that has ever been bug-free at any point in its lifetime.
-l
Yet another reason why MS Word is not a document exchange format. That rant is also avaible in other formats
Prime numbers are exactly what Alan Greenspan says they are -S. Minsky
"Furthermore, they plan on not fixing Word 97, leaving millions of users out in the cold."
That's not entirely true. It is true that before this story broke, Microsoft had no plans on updating or offering any new fixes for anything '97.
However, CNN and AP reported this morning that Micorsoft hasn't ruled out a fix and that they are in the process of determining what it would take to make a fix available.
>>product that has been bug-free from initial release
Citronella candles?
1) IMHO the emphasis on Word97 is wrong. I originally tested this on Word2000 and it worked perfectly.
2) I was not out to find yet another M$ bug. I was using Word for my daily work when I stumbled onto this. It was one of those "I wonder what this button does" things.
3) The vulnerability is actually a lot more serious than the AP and bugtraq posts reveal. There is actually a way to skip the last step where the victim returns the bugged file. In other words, just editing and saving (or printing) the bugged file is sufficient. Look for a new bugtraq post early next week.
"play up what a nightmare Microsoft malware is, and how easy and free OS software is"
No, I'd say use your head and give some insightful advice, rather than spout off like a ranting zealot. Don't "play up" anything. Give the truth.
Don't lie about how easy it is to install and configure the OSS equivalents. Don't pretend they're going to be 100% compatible. And in gods name, stop with the "microsoft owns your soul" rants. Once that user realises you lied, there goes your credibility, your 'stroke'. Next time they'll ask for advice from the kid at the counter of the local Office Depot.
If OSS is going to 'empower' people, it won't be through a bunch of FUD and politics. Let it sink or swim on its own virtues.
This isn't a message directed at you, but rather to all who want to actually help open source be taken seriously.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
FTA:
But, referring to Microsoft engineers, McGee said "there's only so far back they can go."
No. There's only so far back they WILL go. There is a HUGE difference. Microsoft has CHOSEN not to support it, it's not that they can't.
I'm not a prophet or a stone-age man,
I'm just a mortal with potential of a super man.
View some of the past word docs you've received in a hex editor...
Near the bottom there is often information from other documents of the sender that they were recently working on. I don't know why it saves this. Maybe something to do with the undo buffer?
At work I used to look at internal memos that would be sent out on a weekly basis and find out all sorts of other stuff that was going on.
The man who trades freedom for security does not deserve nor will he ever receive either. - Benjamin Franklin
I'm only coming from personal experience, in particular an experience we had at work with SaMBa.
We had this paper tiger straight from the "newbie factory" of the local college. We had a task for a particular client, which boiled down to a fileserver with a big shared folder for images (photos).
So, this kid starts immediately frothing at the mouth about linux and SaMBa. He lied (probably out of ignorance) about how it's completely seamless on a Win2k network. He ranted about how much we'll save by not having to pay to liscense another copy of Win2k for the client.
Well, he got the marketing types convinced. Next thing I know, we're (we as in ME, I do the work around here) knee deep in all the kludges, hacks and nonsense involved in getting the SaMBa box to work exactly as we wanted it to, logging onto the Win2k domain, retrieving user lists, faking NTFS security, etc.
The management, the client, everyone involved became increasingly frustrated.
Long story short, we pissed away countless man-hours before finally acquiescing and just installing another Win2k pro box, which took all of 5 minutes to configure.
The kid has since left, and now about 6 months later, I have other projects that scream for the likes of linux, SaMBa, MySQL. Noone in this office wants to hear it, and think I've become some sort of zealot.
To me, it's just a matter of the right tool for the right job. SaMBa wasn't the right tool for that task, but it is for others. But the frenzied ideology has basically driven it out of this office, at least for the time being.
It's just an anecdotal example of how one well-meaning zealot can do much more damage than good. It happens to be one of my pet peeves.
So, in the meantime, I continue to advocate OSS solutions where they're practical. And its slowly but surely working. I was actually allowed to use a spare pentium box and CoyoteLinux to replace a buggy router in our testing 'bullpen'.
I guess I don't see OSS as 'a cause'. I try to think through problems logically and practically. Sometimes OSS is a logical, practical solution. Sometimes not. I just hate my options being slowly limited as people in the 'industry' line up on one side of the imaginary fence of the other.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
Open source developers are more responsible than closed source developers? Could you please tell me why?
It's so difficult to define what constitutes a "major" problem, and what the seller should be obligated to fix.
Does it work as a word processor? Will it allow you to read, write, print, and format documents? Well if it didn't do those, then I would say it is a major problem. If it emailed personal information to random people on start up, then I would call it a problem, or if it caused your firewall software to crash everytime you opened a .doc file, I would call it a major problem.
If you discover a bug like this and the author isn't willing to fix it, you can always fix it yourself. Why would you ever want to leave this decision to someone else?
Perhaps because I am not a software engineer, and I know that my mother barely knows how to poerate the mouse, let alone debug complex software.
The problem here, is that someone found a way to exploit a Microsoft Word Feature. Now we can tell them to do things in the name of security, oh wait, isn't that what we all complain Bush is doing?
A very famous man once said something along the lines of "They who would give up an essential liberty for temporary security, deserve neither liberty or security".
You are giving up features for temporary security. Anything Microsoft does will be a temporary fix. There are enough hackers out there that hate microsoft that no matter what, they will find a new way to exploit the software. Now before I hear any, "that's because microsoft sucks, use linux" comments, if all the people out there trying to find cracks and exploits for MS Software were instead going agains Linux, or other open sourced applications, you'd find just as many problems.
Don't believe me. Put up an appache web page on a linux box, or what ever opensourced so. Now have the only line on the page say "You can't hack this box". Get a link somewhere that people are going to see it, and then talk to me in a month as to how safe your page was.
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