mbd

In light of recent threads, I would propose a zero tolerance policy on posing executables in the forums. First, reverse engineering executables is nothing more than hacking and there is already a policy against hacking. Second, there are people who visit this forum who are clueless about the dangers of executables. Because they have nothing to do with learning programming, and they are dangerous, they should be banned. That is my argument, but it is only one mans opinion. How about a vote?

Sane

Yes. I especially agree with it being for the sake of random guests who aren't as aware of what the executable could do.

Of course links to trustworthy executables (such as direct links to open-source compilers, libraries, or sourceforge) would be allowed.


I could only see this as an improvement. I don't see a single down-side. There is no reason someone should need to post an executable.

__________________
Waterloo's Canadian Computing Competition (CCC) - Stage 2 Problems, Solutions, and Test Data

Infinite Recursion

I agree. The posting of executables does more harm than good. I'm not a very trusting person, especially when it comes to random EXEs on the net on public forums.

Should be a quick fix to add an extension != exe to the attachment filter.

The other side of the argument would be someone that wrote code and is not wanting to give out the intricate details or the code that they "worked so hard on" because they are paranoid someone will take their PoS code and use it or make a profit from it.

__________________
http://jasonpowers.net

"There are a thousand hacking at the branches of evil to one who is striking at the root."

mbd

to clear things up, i think only direct links should be banned. if you link to http://logging.apache.org/log4net/download.html that would be fine, but linking to http://cvs.apache.org/dist/incubator...net-1.2.10.zip should not be allowed.

Sane

I'm not sure if it should go *that* far. Seems kind of pointless to rule out URLs with a certain extention, instead of deciding to only permit certain trusted sources. In my opinion, direct links should be allowed if the source is trusted. And indirect links should not be allowed under any circumstance. Let's wait to see what cscgal thinks.

__________________
Waterloo's Canadian Computing Competition (CCC) - Stage 2 Problems, Solutions, and Test Data

Fall Back Son

I am not for or against, but I would argue that to someone who is clueless, linking to the address where the exe is located is basically the same thing as linking directly to the .exe. After all, many OS's give a warning when you go to run an executable anyway. But more importantly, if someone doesn't know an exe can be dangerous, linking directly is effectively the same as linking indirectly.

Narue

>I would propose a zero tolerance policy on posing executables in the forums.
And how do you propose we enforce this policy? We already disallow executable files as attachments, and that's about as unobtrusive as it gets. If you want to take it to the next level and actually solve the problem, we would end up disallowing URLs, and I don't think many of you guys would go for that. If you don't want the problem completely solved at this point, any extra steps are just make-work for the moderators. So how far do you want to take this "we're banning executables for your own good" policy?

>Because they have nothing to do with learning programming
PFO isn't just about learning programming.

>and they are dangerous
They can be dangerous if malicious code is contained therein and someone runs the malicious code. That's no different from a source file that contains malicious code and someone runs it, in terms of danger. Don't even try to tell me that a guy who downloads and runs executables should be expected to know how to spot malicious code in a source file.

Personally, I don't see your proposal as a complete solution. In fact, I don't see your proposal as beneficial in any way at all. Ultimately, it's overly harsh for members, too difficult to implement successfully, and really buys us nothing. A much better solution is to leave things as they are and let the community police itself.

__________________
Even if the voices aren't real, they have some pretty good ideas.

Sane

Narue, I was thinking more for the benefit of the thousands of guests we get on this site. There's bound to a few who are more click-happy than they are knowledgeable. They may even know nothing about programming, and merely stumbled across a link to "Cool Game!!" by accident. I know it's not our responsibility to take care of them, but we don't want to welcome the people who would like to use PFO as a medium for spreading viruses and/or hacking.

__________________
Waterloo's Canadian Computing Competition (CCC) - Stage 2 Problems, Solutions, and Test Data

Narue

>Narue, I was thinking more for the benefit of the
>thousands of guests we get on this site.
The target audience is irrelevant. The point is that we simply can't make this work without severely restricting the usability of the forum. Anything else is half-assed, and I'm not interested in doing a lot of extra manual work, for a policy that doesn't really solve the problem, just to make you feel all warm and fuzzy.

__________________
Even if the voices aren't real, they have some pretty good ideas.

mbd

the threads i linked in the original post in this thread do not contribute anything to the community other than malware and hacking requests. why are they still visible? this is my concern. are there not enough moderators to do the job? is there some method of alerting the moderators about useless threads that promote malware and hacking that i am unaware of?