Re: C file recoginzed as image file

[Sascha Wilde]

Giorgos Keramidas <address@hidden> wrote:
> On 2007-01-08 19:01, Richard Stallman <address@hidden> wrote:

> There isn't much Emacs can do to protect against problems with
> potentially buggy versions of the image libraries, though.  We
> can make Emacs *prompt* the user when something looks ``odd'',
> but how do we define ``odd''?

To determine a file is `odd' would probably (most likely) need a full
fledged parser for each file format in question, and even more: our
parsers would have to be proofed bug free in spite of the system
libraries -- so this is no option...

On the other hand: this problem is not Emacs specific by any means:
It's indeed a serious problem that parsing data files from unknown
sources is nearly as much an security risk as running programs from
unknown sources.[0]

The kind of "solution" I would like to see is that Emacs should never
display images (or play sounds for that matter...) without being
explicitly asked to: it is obvious that using M-x image-mode or M-x
thumbs will result in showing the images, but when opening a FOO.xpm
file or viewing a mail it isn't.  For the later cases there should be
config variables which determine if auto-viewing is wanted (possible
values nil t 'ask) which should default to ask.

just my 2¢
sascha

[0] at least on to days mainstream systems whether free or
    proprietary.  I will leave out the rant on the OS designs
    and programming languages I would blame for this kind of
    problems...  ;-)
-- 
Sascha Wilde

"There is no reason why anyone would want a computer in their home"
Ken Olson, DEC, 1977