Yet Another Long Standing Technically Innovative Microsoft Kluge
When you are the Only One, You Never Need to Try Harder:
"After an earlier investigation showed no "smoking gun," we have just confirmed a serious security problem with Microsoft Word 98 on the Mac: Word 98 documents may contain hidden, random snippets of data from elsewhere in your hard disk or memory. That is, Word 98 documents can include, hidden from view, data completely unrelated to the document and never inserted by the user. Sending a Word 98 document to someone else thus could reveal random private information on your computer system without your knowledge.
We opened with BBEdit several Word 98 documents we'd created and documents we'd received. They contained confidential email, URLs, disk directory paths and other information that is invisible within Word 98 and that never should have been in these files. The problem occurs even if Fast Save is disabled (which we recommend), and readers report the problem also involves Office 97, earlier versions of Word (including Word 6), and Excel.
Chuck Shotton notes that the problem has been around for years and apparently results from the following bug:
"[Word] ignores the logical end of file and includes the entire contents of the final disk sector in the file. Since that disk sector may have been previously used for things like e-mail or other documents, it is possible that the data on the disk will be included in your Word document."
Ignoring contorted solutions using disk-wipe utilities, the simplest solution, suggested by Chuck, is to use Save As to put your Word file on a newly-erased disk volume (perhaps a RAM disk or floppy) before sending it out to someone else.
According to readers, this problem affects PageMaker and Quark Express files, and it likely affects other applications, too." From MacInTouch, June 26, 1998.
Another good reason for corporations to avoid Macintosh. What do you bet this problem never gets fixed if the anti-trust crises dies down?
Microsoft does not have a good reputation in my mind with respect to "technical innovation". In fact, as a reluctant DOS-Windows user, I have consistently seen it as a weak spot for the past 12 years. I see Microsoft as a successful marketing company that promises anything then writes barely adequate code at its leisure. If it weren't for the Lemming Mentality Factor, marketing FUD, and the resulting uninformed Forced Migrations away from competing products and platforms, Microsoft and the industry would be competitive and healthy. Instead, the industry is getting increasingly top heavy and Microsoft has become increasingly vulnerable.
Ask yourself this, while an overwhelming 96.2% of PC computer users employ Microsoft OS, does anyone really like it?!
There is a huge volume of enmity built up against Bill Gates and Microsoft out there. Some of it may even be justified. But, justified or not, the sheer weight of it all could eventually effect how high Microsoft will fly.
Hal |
