[PLUG-TALK] Gag-choke-Windoze-virus-check-barf
Paul Heinlein
heinlein at madboa.com
Sat Mar 16 14:42:47 UTC 2019
On Fri, 15 Mar 2019, Keith Lofstrom wrote:
> I have no idea whether a quickbooks data file can carry a virus
> payload. If there is a zero-day exploit, only computer criminals
> know for sure. So, before we give the data to our accountant, I
> hope to find a windoze security expert who can carefully vet the
> data. Extra bonus points if they can convert it to openoffice or
> excel spreadsheet format (without macros).
Back in the 90s (warning: old fart alert!), the developers of
WordPerfect published and documented the binary format that software
used for word-processing documents. I know that because I wrote a Perl
script that would parse a WP documents and rewrite them into the
crazy pseudo-SGML QuarkXPress could import.
I don't know if WordPerfect lost profits due to that decision, but I
do know it made it possible to, at some level, understand what was
hidden within WP's binary files.
Plus, I've never had a word processor that was as good at actually,
you know, getting words into a computer as WordPerfect 4.2 for DOS.
Once the GUIs entered the game, word processing became (imo) more
about formatting and less about content.
--
Paul Heinlein
heinlein at madboa.com
45°38' N, 122°6' W
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