Reply to post: Re: h4rmony, you're super-great!

Re: h4rmony, you're super-great!

>>"...if they send an attachment you don't approve of, that's attacking them. "

If you have to cut your quotes from me off part way through a sentence, you may be trying to misrepresent me. It's a clue. Here's the full sentence I wrote:

>>"If you start a post by saying you feel threatened by people's ignorance if they send an attachment you don't approve of, that's attacking them"

Yeah, calling a lot of people ignorant is an attack on them. Especially when your reasoning that they are "ignorant" is because they just happen to be sending you a common file format that you personally don't approve of.

>>Since you're a Microsoft advocate here (while still using Debian and CentOS according your other comments, which is supposed to add more value to this, another get the facts business)

I'm not a "Microsoft advocate". I like good technology. All of my posts have been in defence of ill-founded accusations, not attacks by me on others. For example, Libre Office has the same macros issue as MS Office and has pretty much hit on the same solution as well. Pointing that out is not attacking Libre Office / ODF. Nor is it advocating MS Office. It's simply highlighting that someone shouldn't hold one up as more secure than the other in this regard.

Of course to a partisan person, neutrality appears bias. I like and use Debian and MS products. There's nothing wrong with that. In fact, it lets me make informed comparisons. I'm sure you recall that ridiculous discussion on Powershell vs. Bash where I posted a question asking for help on Powershell - a topic with no reference to Bash, and you waded in with a tonne of posts about how Powershell must be inferior to Bash before finally admitting you hadn't used Powershell. Having a wide range of experience is a GOOD thing, so I have no problem with you highlighting that I use Debian, CentOS and Windows 8 in my work. I'm happy to do so and I fail to see why that's a negative.

>>"If you prefer sending docs in doc, docx, xls etc format when another format is a better way to go, than you are ignorant by my definition."

First you have to prove that your other format is better. You have singularly not done that in this discussion. The above statement contains an unproven assumption which you appear to have taken for granted. Furthermore, just because someone doesn't agree with you, that is not a definition of ignorance.

In fact, two people pointed out to YOU that Libre Office documents can contain macros the same way that MS Office documents do, so I have some doubts just how much you actually know on the subject.

>>"I know you also mentioned, that without those scary and dangerous proprietary bits the IT world is devoid of color, beauty and sense."

I said nothing remotely like that. If you even respond to this post have the decency to find something I've written in this thread that remotely matches up to what you just said that I said. It's a ridiculous thing to post - anyone following this thread can easily look back at my posts and see you're now making up positions for me.

>>"But the due thanks do indeed go to Adobe, the good part of the company, that created the open standard of PDF and PostScript formats. MS doesn't even deserve one hundredth of this."

See, I'm trying to argue security aspects of file formats and features. You're repeatedly going off to make emotive assertions about what Microsoft doesn't deserve. This is why your arguments keep shifting around - because you use them as tools to shore up your dislike rather than as an interesting discussion in and of themself. I keep trying to stay focused on security, you keep using my posts to launch off into diatribes about proprietary software. And so eventually, I end up making a post like this where instead of talking about execution priveleges for Macros as I was earlier, I'm just defending myself against rambling attacks and sly suggestions that I'm making things up. Oh, and childish comments about how h4rm0ny is not on your preferred list. *sigh*

>>"As far as your threat is concerned, go ahead and try infecting us, the users of ods, odt and odp format, you'll be praised to be the first one after those hundreds of thousands if not millions of Windows users that have fallen victims to this already. H4rmony is super-great! "

This is not only childish, but gross misinterpretation and I really object to it. Firstly, I made no "threat". I pointed out that I could write a trojan for GNU/Linux that worked on exactly the same principles as one for Windows. That's a technical point and an accurate one. Secondly, don't even try to pull an "Us vs. Them" when you say 'go ahead and try infecting us'. I use GNU/Linux daily, as you know. You don't get to cast me as some Other. I started out with SuSE 6.4 long ago. Like it or not, I'm part of the Linux community, so tough. You have no special claim to represent the Linux community and in fact, I think your preachy comments about how other people are ignorant cast us all in a bad light, tbh.

>>"For myself, I'd call a math paper written in odf "an ignorance attack" as well (even if a person is a Math, Physics genius), for better formatting things should laid out by means of LaTeX or TeX.."

So? Are we meant to conclude that if LaTeX is better for laying out maths papers than ODF then someone is wrong to use OOXML over ODF? You're missing a few steps there. Argument by analogy is generally a poor dodge to avoid having to prove something. Or is your contention that if you accurately call something ignorant in one case, then you are accurate to call something ignorant in another? Again - missing a few steps.

>>"Although a LO formula editor is much better adn closer to TeX than that infamous and ignorant MS Equations!"

By this point, I'd be willing to bet money that you have no significant experience in using the current formula editors in MS Office. Am I right? For a start "MS Equations" was deprecated some years ago. I think it's still available for backwards compatibility, but formula editing is built into MS Office without that now. Because I'm near certain you don't use it, based on your history of criticising without actual experience (ref. the extended argument you had about the flaws in Powershell before admitting you hadn't used it), I bothered to install the Maths plug in for Libre Office to do a quick comparison. Obviously there's no substitute for experience, but here are two screenshots of me editing a famous equation in both products, which I entered from scratch. I think the comparison is actually quite a fun one:

Here is Office 2013 formula editor: http://oi62.tinypic.com/2iqfjw6.jpg

Here is Libre Office formular editor: http://oi57.tinypic.com/2091r2d.jpg

Note, it took me a few goes to find the formula editor in Libre Office as I've not used it before. I found it tucked away under Insert->Object->Formula. On the ribbon, you just go to the Insert tab and there's a big Pi symbol with formula written underneath it, which I personally find a little more accessible.

Anyway, looking at them both and trying to enter some formula, I don't see the basis for claiming superiority for LO's implementation. Although I'll concede you did deliberately compare it to older and officially deprecated tools. Libre Office does have a long-hand text entry box option which MS Office does not, but I found it pretty painful to use. I'm still interested to know if you've used the current version of formula in MS Office seeing as you're so keen to criticise. Honest answer, please.

>>"It is stupid if one uses Adobe reader, are you using one?.. on Debian and CentOS, I am sure you're not..."

No, I'm not. But the world of computer security doesn't depend on what I use. I said PDFs shouldn't be on a preferred list for security (several times now, my point really should be quite clear). That some people use less capable PDF readers than the current most popular PDF reader in the world, is not an argument that they should be. You do this repeatedly - instead of rebutting my point, you quote part of it and then say something true as if it does rebutt my point without actually showing in any way how it does (or could!).

As to the final silly little barbs you're sticking on the end of your posts, I'm going to recap:

You: "it is good that you are not making my preferred list."

Me: "Okay".

You: "Okay? No it's great."

What should this exchange tell you about your posts? That they are personally antagonistic and that you're being rather childish. Just stick to the discussion and if you want to talk about relative security of file formats, I'm happy to do so. I'm even happy to talk about the merits of Libre Office vs. MS Office formula editors. But lets not have this ridiculous stuff about how I'm not on your preferred list. I don't care and it benefits no-one.