Re: Unicode and Security

From: Gaspar Sinai (gsinai@yudit.org)
Date: Mon Feb 04 2002 - 23:27:49 EST


On Mon, 4 Feb 2002, Mark Leisher wrote:

[...cut some stuff to save room...]

> I don't understand your reasoning. Applying the bidi algorithm or a
> higher-level protocol does not change the backing store. Applying the bidi
> algorithm is essentially a one-way transformation, but the original
> information need not be thrown away. Yudit differentiates the backing store
> and the display, does it not?

Thank you for mentioning Yudit - I don't need advertisement,
there are enough users.

Just because some companies who have influence on Unicode
Consortium use some algorithm, like backing store and re-mapping,
it does not mean that this is the only way. And I don't even
think they do in cases when character conversion is necessary.

For me it is very imprtant what a naive user sees on the screen.
Yudit does convert the input to view order and back. Text
direction and end of line is clearly indicated. The Unicode
values of the characters in the cluster under the cursor are
clearly indicated. In all cases what you view be converted back to
the *same* bitstream - except for illegal encoded text but that
leaves clearly visible traces in the screen, as it should.

If the standard wants me to confuse the user, I would rather dump the
standard than comply.

I wish there was another world character standard besides
Unicode and not only half-hearted attempts like bytext.
Talking about characters: I think bi-di should not be in
Unicode Standard because it is not a character.
It is an algorithm.

I also start think this thread is a waste of time.
This thread won't solve the our problem.

I feel sorry for interrupting in the "Let's praise and
celebrate Unicode" mood of this mailing list.

gaspar

I updated:
http://www.yudit.org/security/
I wanted to remove it after solving the problem, but
it seems that this page will stay.



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