Comments

• David Gerard

  2009-07-26 19:01:17

  Of course it's the formats! That's why every format vulnerability in MS Office is also found in OpenOffice.org ... oh wait, no they aren't. Gosh, it couldn't be crappy programming, or not validating untrusted input, or anything like that? I must be a zealot to think it.

• Roy Schestowitz

  2009-07-26 19:28:25

  Yes, given more time I would have said something about the format issues.
  
  Forget about malicious programs. When we have binary formats we also deal with malicious file formats and files that become malicious when merely interpreted, not executed.

• David Gerard

  2009-07-26 20:33:59

  The real problem is that:
  
  (a) in the '90s, Microsoft made a lot of their file formats dumps of C structs, for performance reasons;
  
  (b) when this became incredibly hazardous with the Internet, and computers were powerful enough to check for malicious input ... they just kept on using the old code.
  
  Then their master stroke of putting a complete programming language inside Office, thus inventing the macro virus.
  
  Then their other master stroke of programs that execute any random instructions they happen to find in EMAIL MESSAGES.
  
  INNOVATION!