Perhaps this exists already, and if not, it should...

[Tim]

On Fri, 2012-04-13 at 17:19 -0400, Tom Horsley wrote:
> Of course this is why Internet Explorer works correctly
> so much more often than Firefox, because 99.997% of all
> web servers are misconfigured and send the wrong mime
> type for half the files :-).

Ironically, it's problems stem from MSIE doing the opposite.  It sniffs
the file, ignores the header info, and lets Windows explorer do what it
thinks that type of file should normally do.

i.e. Someone sends you an executable, while claiming it's a MIDI file.
Your various options for protecting your computer think that MIDI files
are safe, so make no attempt to protect you from an incoming MIDI file.
The browser sniffs the content, discovers it's an executable, and
executes it (and probably as the admin user thinks to stupid programmers
and dumb users), and the virus/trojan/malware does its trick.

And all it takes is for some webpage, or email, to embed such a file in
the background, and your browser or mail client automatically launches
such malware for you.

I do NOT miss using Windows, one little bit.  Windows and the IBM-clone
are the worst designed products ever invented.  The internet would have
been a much better place (less spam and viruses, for instance), if
Microsoft had a bloody clue about how to do computing properly.

-- 
[tim at localhost ~]$ uname -r
2.6.27.25-78.2.56.fc9.i686

Don't send private replies to my address, the mailbox is ignored.  I
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