Brian Hook on the ActiveX Experience

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Brian Hook on the ActiveX Experience

Posted by Hemos on Monday January 17, 2005 @05:32AM from the poorly-made-and-maintained dept.

Obiwan Kenobi writes "Brian Hook of id software fame got around to developing on ActiveX and found some minor grievances, particularly in the security department. To quote: "I've been doing some ActiveX coding on the side for a couple days, stuff I'm not familiar with, and I'm just flat out _appalled_ at how bad that entire API and design is. I can make an OCX that basically formats your hard drive, stick it on a Web page with a tag, and if your security settings are set low enough, you'll start formatting your hard drive the minute you visit my Web page.""

27 of 523 comments (clear)

Gee, that's news... by Assmasher · 2005-01-17 05:33 · Score: 4, Funny

I wonder if anybody knew that before... LOL.

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1. Re:Gee, that's news... by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-17 10:46 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  You write an interesting dialect I've never heard before. Some of the words and parts of your syntax almost resemble English. May I ask where you acquired this vernacular?
Do it by savagedome · 2005-01-17 05:33 · Score: 5, Funny

I can make an OCX that basically formats your hard drive, stick it on a Web page with a tag, and if your security settings are set low enough, you'll start formatting your hard drive the minute you visit my Web page

Please. DO IT NOW. Thanks.

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Free XBox, PS2
1. Re:Do it by mordors9 · 2005-01-17 05:39 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  But does it run on Linux ;-)
2. Re:Do it by CactusInvasion · 2005-01-17 05:45 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Aha! Finally a reason for me to have been running BeOS for all these years!
3. Re:Do it by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-17 05:52 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  "Please. DO IT NOW. Thanks."
  
  Great, this will be the new goatse link we'll find hidden in slashdot comments.
4. Re:Do it by TWX · 2005-01-17 06:23 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  echo y|format c: /q
  
  rm -rf /
  It's doable.
  
  Back in the Windows 95 days when I was fifteen, Best Buy's computer sales department pissed me off so badly at a particular store that I added the format statement to the autoexec.bat files on their demo computers as I browsed around. They installed security software in that particular store after that.
  
  At some point Microsoft modified format.exe (or was it format.com?) to make it clear the buffer before prompting for yes/no.
  
  --
  Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
5. Re:Do it by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-17 08:27 · Score: 1, Funny
  
  Call it: "natural selection".
So... by Aztek · 2005-01-17 05:34 · Score: 5, Funny

what rock has he been under all these years?

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AZTEK
Easy Formatting by kdark1701 · 2005-01-17 05:34 · Score: 5, Funny

Well, that would eliminate the problem of people not knowing how to format their hard drive
You know... by Eccles · 2005-01-17 05:35 · Score: 3, Funny

I'm not sure I want to follow that link...

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Ooh, a sarcasm detector. Oh, that's a real useful invention.
1. Re:You know... by The+Cisco+Kid · 2005-01-17 05:51 · Score: 5, Funny
  
  If you are using IE, I'd be scared to follow any link if I were you.
First Post by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-17 05:35 · Score: 4, Funny

Firt po...

Formatting C: 5% Complete
Please by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-17 05:35 · Score: 2, Funny

Can you send a link?
Oh, no! by Jacco+de+Leeuw · 2005-01-17 05:37 · Score: 4, Funny

... and if your security settings are set low enough, you'll start formatting your hard drive the minute you visit my Web page.
I hope virus writers won't find out about this!

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Warning: Slashdot may contain traces of nuts.
Hey, I bet he could make money by Anonymous Coward · 2005-01-17 05:37 · Score: 5, Funny

Setup www.formatmyharddrive.com. Online hard drive formatting, done in minutes, only $5.
1. Re:Hey, I bet he could make money by headkase · 2005-01-17 05:59 · Score: 4, Funny
  
  Just make sure their credit card details are sent before their hard drive is formatted...
  :)
  
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  Shh.
Re:ActiveX Experience by CactusInvasion · 2005-01-17 05:39 · Score: 4, Funny

Nasty? But I got all this stuff installed on my hard drive without having to worry about it. Programs like Gator are so nice! I mean, they pop up without me even having to find them. And Norton says this one programs says it's logging my keystrokes. It's so nice to have a typing analyst installed automatically. I wonder if it'll tell me which words I misspell the most.
Re:More Ammo by Mysticalfruit · 2005-01-17 05:45 · Score: 4, Funny

If your going todo that, you might as well go full monte and create an activeX control that would format the harddrive and install linux... then it would be something useful...

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Yes Francis, the world has gone crazy.
Other Big News Items: by PopeAlien · 2005-01-17 05:46 · Score: 4, Funny

- Sco claims ownership of linux source code!
- Apple has released new products!
- DVD CSS encryption has been broken!
- RIAA threatened by P2P networks!
- Darth Vader is Lukes Father!
- BSD is dying!

Its good to keep up to date on all the latest news.

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air and light and time and space
1. Re:Other Big News Items: by Wordsmith · 2005-01-17 06:35 · Score: 2, Funny
  
  Darth Vader is WHAT?!
  
  Thanks for ruining the movie for me.
But, but ,but ... by nels_tomlinson · 2005-01-17 05:51 · Score: 3, Funny

But that's double-plus-ungood-unpossible! Ballmer said that Security is Microsoft's Top Priority .
He'd never lie to us, would he?

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See what I've been reading.
Re:Site visit results in disk reformat. Sad thing by allanj · 2005-01-17 05:59 · Score: 4, Funny

Like the man said about tsunami alerts in the United States: "There's still a large segment of the population that would go get their kids out of school so they could drive to the beach and watch the big waves..."

Those who still do not believe in natural selection raise their hands. No-one? Didn't think so.

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Black holes are where God divided by zero
Re:Too Bad Rest of World Doesn't Understand by mrak+and+swepe · 2005-01-17 06:08 · Score: 2, Funny

But fiction has a grain of fact in it to make it real.

That's the most wonderful sentence I've ever read.

Fiction ... Fact ... Real ... Fiction is real? ... Fiction is real when it's actually fact? ... Some fact is real? ... Some fiction is fact? ... Tautology? ... Oxymoron? ... Both?

I think my brain is about to explode.
Bonus! by CaptainZapp · 2005-01-17 07:41 · Score: 2, Funny

In addition you get a completely secure box and the guarantee that all your spyware and trojans are cleaned.
Yep, sounds like a great deal.

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ich bin der musikant
mit taschenrechner in der hand
kraftwerk
Grammar check, please! by Just+Some+Guy · 2005-01-17 08:06 · Score: 4, Funny

i mean, any operating system is vulnerable to an exploit if it's security infrastructure is sufficiently loose.
It's lose, darnit, lose lose LOSE !
Wait a minute, you actually meant to say "loose", didn't you?
Between using "lose/loose" correctly and not writing "This begs the questions:", I'm prompted to ask: what are you doing on Slashdot? We don't take decent grammar lightly around here, bucko.

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Dewey, what part of this looks like authorities should be involved?
PS... by argent · 2005-01-17 11:19 · Score: 3, Funny

ActiveX is simply a "better" Netscape plugin.

You seem to have misspelled "horribly horribly worse" as "better" there. Hope that helps. Have a nice day.