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From: lphillips@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca (Larry Phillips)
Newsgroups: comp.sys.amiga
Subject: Re: Self Extracting Archives
Message-ID: <1238@lpami.wimsey.bc.ca>
Date: 12 Mar 90 22:37:19 GMT
Lines: 36
Return-Path: <lpami!lphillips>
To: van-bc!rnews

In <90.25fc5fd6@uoft02.utoledo.edu>, grx1042@uoft02.utoledo.edu (Steve Snodgrass) writes:
>   Have you considered this: given a self extracting archive, you can generally
>list the files it contains.  Thus, you know immediately that you're just going
>to unpack some files, or if the archive is fake.  The only current
>self-extracting format available on Amiga is PAK (a horrible program, I might
>mention) which is capable of listing contents if you have it around.  I expect
>that Lharc self-extracting format will be available soon, also with listing
>capability.  This, you can easily check to see what you're executing is really
>an archive.

You can list the files it contains _IF_ you have the archiver, and if the
archiver allows that operation. Of course if you have the archiver, there isn't
much sense in having a self extracting archive of something. You also have to
trust the archiver to check the archive well enough to be sure that it isn't a
trojan disguised as a self extracting archive.

When you come right down to it, any program you execute is a potential
disaster. Any file you treat as data is much, much less so. I prefer to make my
judgements about the safety of a file when it is in the form in which it will
be run, in plain code, non-encrypted.

For the edification of the fellow who said we were being paranoid, let me say
that I probably extract more unknown (ie. not from a Fish disk or from someone
I know and trust) files in a week than he would in three months, and it's part
of what I do in this hobby; making things a little safer for those who just
download, extract, and run things they find online.

-larry

--
Entomology bugs me.
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|   //   Larry Phillips                                                 |
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