Re: RFC archival format, was: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required
2009-07-13 22:59:02
Douglas Otis <dotis at mail dash abuse dot org> wrote:
... The concern related to the use of the Word input format, which
has changed in 97, 00, 02, 03, 07, and is likely again in 10, remains
that of security. Changes are not always apparent, and even format
documentation can not be relied upon when details related to active
components are ill defined. The security concern is in regard to the
embedded program language, especially when the program is to be relied
upon as the means to generate IETF compliant outputs. The Internet is
not a safe place, where a practice of embedding programs that can
cause harm into what could have been innocuous text should be
considered a bad practice. Currently, collaboration between
individuals might be accomplished by sharing xml2rfc input files,
which are also retained with the plain text RFC output. Reliance
upon Word input files as a replacement for xml2rfc files will
invariably lead to a bad practice of depending upon potentially
harmful embedded programs.
OK, I've had just about enough of this fearmongering. Why on Earth
would someone use Visual Basic within Word to write a utility to convert
Microsoft Word ***XML*** documents to an IETF-acceptable format, when
there are much better tools for processing XML? Why would someone not
specifically write such a utility to ignore or reject any Word document
containing executable code? Are we that stupid?
Based on the logic I am reading here, I should stop writing code in
Visual Studio because it could be used to create a worm or virus, should
stop turning on my computer because the box could be used to beat
someone over the head, should stop driving my car to work in the morning
because someone could crash it into a preschool. We shouldn't try to
stop people from using every tool that could potentially, theoretically,
be misused or used intentionally for evil. I use Word almost every day
and I haven't encountered a macro virus for years, probably because I
don't open e-mail attachments from unknown senders and don't visit
MySpaceCoolAddOns.com, and have also learned to walk upright.
I don't plan to respond further to this thread because it is obviously
going nowhere.
This, on the other hand, from Iljitsch van Beijnum <iljitsch at muada
dot com>:
This solves the problem that converting anything else into XML2RFC a
reverse lossy process: XML2RFC needs more than what other formats can
supply so automatic conversion (from, for instance, Word) is
impossible.
is a genuinely useful and productive counterargument against the whole
"word2rfc" concept.
--
Doug Ewell * Thornton, Colorado, USA * RFC 4645 * UTN #14
http://www.ewellic.org
http://www1.ietf.org/html.charters/ltru-charter.html
http://www.alvestrand.no/mailman/listinfo/ietf-languages ˆ
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- Re: RFC archival format, was: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required, (continued)
- Re: RFC archival format, was: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required, Byung-Hee HWANG
- Re: RFC archival format, was: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required, Doug Ewell
- Re: RFC archival format, was: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required, Douglas Otis
- Re: RFC archival format, was: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required, Julian Reschke
- Re: RFC archival format, was: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required, Iljitsch van Beijnum
- Re: RFC archival format, was: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required,
Doug Ewell <=
- Re: RFC archival format, was: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required, Doug Otis
- Re: RFC archival format, was: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required, Julian Reschke
- Re: RFC archival format, was: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required, Iljitsch van Beijnum
Re: RFC archival format, was: Re: More liberal draft formatting standards required, james woodyatt
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