I don't know why I ever bother to look at the Wikipedia Review site... the antics of the malcontents and morons there always make my blood boil. But the latest stupid accusation they're making against Wikipedia is that we're supposedly infecting people with viruses:
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=3362
On 9/2/06, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
I don't know why I ever bother to look at the Wikipedia Review site... the antics of the malcontents and morons there always make my blood boil. But the latest stupid accusation they're making against Wikipedia is that we're supposedly infecting people with viruses:
http://wikipediareview.com/index.php?showtopic=3362
-- == Dan ==
Ahh, come on, that shit is funny! They're loons! It's funny to see them implode and spew all that misguided hatred, and realise that they all probably lead, well.... not the most exciting lives. Schadenfreude and pity, as good a recipe for a smug feeling of superiority as anything. And I like feeling smug. It's nice :D
BTW, my favorite quote:
"And speaking only for myself, I believe Microsoft to be one of the few organizations in the world, along with Wal-Mart and the Bush Administration, to actually be doing more damage to international culture than Wikipedia."
Al-Qeada, anyone? No? So you're saying that Microsoft and Wikipedia is the reason I can't listen to my iPod on an airplane. Damn you, Steve Ballmer, damn you all to hell!
--Oskar
PS. It really is quite funny, I'm serious about that (or am I?)
On 9/2/06, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
I don't know why I ever bother to look at the Wikipedia Review site... the antics of the malcontents and morons there always make my blood boil. But the latest stupid accusation they're making against Wikipedia is that we're supposedly infecting people with viruses:
Ah when this first came out we were somewaht worried. now less so but the threat was real.
On 03/09/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/2/06, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
Wikipedia is that we're supposedly infecting people with viruses:
Ah when this first came out we were somewaht worried. now less so but the threat was real.
It's jawdropping how much software is dumb enough to treat data as programs. In 1999, I was still able to tell customers the [[Goodtimes virus]] was impossible, as no-one could dream of making an email application that would run an email as a program just like that ...
- d.
David Gerard wrote:
On 03/09/06, geni geniice@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/2/06, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
Wikipedia is that we're supposedly infecting people with viruses:
Ah when this first came out we were somewaht worried. now less so but the threat was real.
It's jawdropping how much software is dumb enough to treat data as programs. In 1999, I was still able to tell customers the [[Goodtimes virus]] was impossible, as no-one could dream of making an email application that would run an email as a program just like that ...
Wikiholism is spread by a psychovirus. ;-)
Ec
On 9/2/06, Daniel R. Tobias dan@tobias.name wrote:
I don't know why I ever bother to look at the Wikipedia Review site... the antics of the malcontents and morons there always make my blood boil. But the latest stupid accusation they're making against Wikipedia is that we're supposedly infecting people with viruses:
We have had external links to evil content in the past.
We've had media files which were were nothing more than exe's renamed to .jpg or .ogg.
We currently have about 80 external links to exe files (although I've scanned all of them with clamav and they all pass, if someone can suggest other free tools which can run on *nix.. that would be useful)
Even if you ignore all the other formats which can act as attack vectors on typical windows boxes.
So, just because they are crazy doesn't mean there isn't a point....
On 9/2/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote: [snip]
Even if you ignore all the other formats which can act as attack vectors on typical windows boxes.
gah, hit send on accident yet again..
so even if you ignore all the other formats, there are clearly ways that Wikipedia can be abused to spread dangerous content to people on the internet.
And because I'm sure someone will ask about it, here are the tallies for external link extensions on enwikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/User:Gmaxwell/extff
The external links are a good point, but they say our images are infected with viruses and trojans. I don't think that's possible as any program altered to have an image extension would be rejecte by the upload page, right?
Mgm
On 9/3/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
The external links are a good point, but they say our images are infected with viruses and trojans. I don't think that's possible as any program altered to have an image extension would be rejecte by the upload page, right?
If you upload an image with file magic that doesn't match its extension you get an ominous warning on the image page that the content might be infectious. ... this is likely what they are talking about.
And yes, its possible that a user could manage to execute such a file if it were actually harmful.
Well, the upload page wouldn't complain, just the image wouldn't display. I don't think MIME types are embedded in the file as well as being stated in the file extension. When the image is loaded, it would be treated as an image, so harmful code couldn't really be executed. However, I've heard that through a combination of .htaccess to php-ify .gif/.jpg/.whatever you can send the batch file mime type while hiding in a .gif and have the user run it as a batch file, which can be malicious, but that doesn't happen for ordinary image uploads on WP.
On 9/3/06, Gregory Maxwell gmaxwell@gmail.com wrote:
On 9/3/06, MacGyverMagic/Mgm macgyvermagic@gmail.com wrote:
The external links are a good point, but they say our images are infected with viruses and trojans. I don't think that's possible as any program altered to have an image extension would be rejecte by the upload page, right?
If you upload an image with file magic that doesn't match its extension you get an ominous warning on the image page that the content might be infectious. ... this is likely what they are talking about.
And yes, its possible that a user could manage to execute such a file if it were actually harmful. _______________________________________________ WikiEN-l mailing list WikiEN-l@Wikipedia.org To unsubscribe from this mailing list, visit: http://mail.wikipedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikien-l