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Florian Weimer <fw@deneb.enyo.de> writes:

> After some discussion with RMS after he posted:

RMS>   2. We did not make the incredibly stupid decision to design
RMS>   applications so that they execute programs that arrive in the mail.
RMS>
RMS> [..] If you know the journalists who might write about this, it
RMS> would be useful to to talk with them before they write their
RMS> stories.

@digression

I think there's a bit of hybris in that statement.  If I were a
journalist, I'd be asking questions like:

* Many viruses exploit user stupidity/naivet=E9 rather than technical
  flaws.  Does switching to free software automatically make you less
  stupid?

* Are LaTeX files less prone to macro viruses than Microsoft Word
  files?

* Why is the `eval' file variable in Emacs any safer than the ability
  to launch an exe file from Outlook Express[1]?

@end digression

> we have come to the conclusion that it might be a good idea to
> disable mailcap processing.
>
> I'd like to see 'mm-enable-external' disabled in the default
> configuration, but my judgement in such matters is typically quite
> drastic.

Why should we a priori consider, say, xdvi less safe than some of the
libraries (libpng, libtiff, zlib etc.) that Emacs is built against?


[1] Actually, you can't do this any more in OE, you're not even
    allowed to save it to disk.