🚀 go-pugleaf

On Sat, 1 Jul 2000 11:18:52 +1200, Adam Warner <Adam.Warner@xtra.co.nz> wrote:
>Hi David,
>
>> That is a very simple "compromise" . Why didn't Microsoft include the
>> destination filename in the Digital Certificate !!!
>
>(Glad you corrected yourself). The digital certificate itself was certainly
>not compromised.
>
<stir>
Given the availablity of distributed codebreaking and beowulf clusters at 
universities around the world can this be guaranteed?
</stir>

>
>I think the bigger question, and which I think you concur with, is why any
>user should want executables being downloaded from the web and executed
>without their knowledge (so long as once in their lifetime they decided to
>"trust" an organisation).
>
>Microsoft has just released an e-mail security update. One if it's (default)
>features is that it won't let you execute executables. You have to save them
>to you hard disk and then make a decision whether to execute them.

This was one of the major points of my "Microsoft Applications Security And
The Internet" post.

QUOTE
>Unrestricted Foreign Script And Executable Execution
>====================================================
>Microsoft continues to distribute applications that will execute embedded 
>destructive scripts, macros and therefore trojans. Microsoft applications 
>and operating systems do not even provide a restrictive environment in which 
>a user can open,view and run untrusted documents. Any operating system can 
>run executables,shell commands and other scripts but why is it that Windows
>9X, 2000 and NT applications run scripts and executables embedded in email 
>and Office documents at the click of a users assent.
UNQUOTE

>Once an
>organisation is trusted, ActiveX is more permissive.
>

I really cannot see how native executable code could ever be considered
as suitable for use as a distributed agent - No matter what the host
operating system is involved. Have a look at the discussion in alt.comp.virus
about the possiblity ( IMHO Yes ) of hardware damage via sofware execution.

David Mohring - How secure is your BIOS's CMOS?