on 10/15/2012, Ant supposed :
> "FromTheRafters" wrote:
>
>> Ant wrote :
>>> I wouldn't like that at all. If I double click on a malicious exe (not
>>> that I deliberately do) renamed as ".vir" or ".bin" then I don't want
>>> the OS deciding what to do with it; i.e. run it. I want it to open in
>>> a hex editor or whatever I've associated to those extensions.
>>
>> Yeah, I hadn't considered the ease at which one can 'name away'
>> executables. I suppose though that it could be done with an execute bit
>> or something like that.
>
> That's how Unix does it.
>
>>> The only way that could work is if displaying an icon resource from
>>> the exe were disallowed.
>>
>> It could still be allowed, but the shell could overlay something akin
>> to what it does with shortcut icons. An executable would *always* show
>> that it is an executable by a star (instead of a little arrow) in the
>> corner, or a border color for the entire icon. All executables could be
>> identified clearly no matter what custom icon was included.
>
> I think that would be a good idea anyway. Make applications very
> distinct from documents/data.
>
>>> also no quick way of determining whether a file is text only,
>>> especially in these days of unicode.
>>
>> I suppose the OS could determine such when the file is first saved with
>> content and such metadata could be stored in the filesystem where it is
>> more easily accessed.
>
> Like the resource fork in MacOS or alternate data streams and extended
> attributes in NTFS. The trouble is that a file and its metadata are
> soon parted when copied to other file systems (USB sticks).
Yeah, but if that metadata is actually in the file's content and only
copied the one time to the local filesystem to make it more easily
accessible for listing, it would survive being transported across such
systems with filesystems that are incompatible, and those systems would
be unaffected by the change. They could, in fact, still rely on
filename extension if they wanted to.
I dunno, it just seems to me that filenames are too easily manipulated
to have such an important role in how an OS or a user will treat a
file. It made perfect sense in the 8.3 days, but now perhaps something
more robust can be done.
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