D
Dave
Because I actually like to know and control when my documents are
modified, I maintain digital checksums of all my documents (as anyone
should to detect corruption or unauthorized tampering).
Yesterday I was sent a binomial distribution table in an Excel document.
I opened the document and then closed it without making any changes.
The file's last-modified timestamp was unchanged. However, I detected
modification of the file by a change in its SHA1 signature. A binary
comparison between the original document revealed some minor
differences, such as the original author's name being partially
overwritten with my name in the document's hidden metadata.
This was very discouraging, and despite going through every single
option in Excel's options, I was unable to stop this behavior. I
personally find this kind of software behavior appalling. It isn't the
particular change in this incident that bothers me; my name isn't
exactly highly classified information. What I do find extremely
bothersome about the behavior of this software is the level to which it
is representative of Microsoft's general attitude toward the consumer's
privacy and security. If one scours through the MS Knowledge Base,
there are dozens of documents pertaining to privacy and security related
issues involving the hidden metadata stored by the Office suite of
products, so obviously it *is* quite an issue. Search even harder, and
maybe you'll even find some specialty-tools to aid you in the removal of
this unwanted information, a rather passive approach to a problem which
could easily be eliminated by allowing users control over the
dissemination of their personal information in the first place, wouldn't
you say? But I'm getting off-topic. Excuse me.
I think the important point here is that *no* software should be
modifying your documents when you simply open them for reading!
Modifications should be user-initiated and confirmed. I think that
represents most people's expectation. Does anyone feel otherwise??
Deliberate or not, I can only conclude that this is a *bug* in Excel.
I haven't even gotten around to testing Word and other
Office-bloatware for similar bugs. I can't wait.
Dave
modified, I maintain digital checksums of all my documents (as anyone
should to detect corruption or unauthorized tampering).
Yesterday I was sent a binomial distribution table in an Excel document.
I opened the document and then closed it without making any changes.
The file's last-modified timestamp was unchanged. However, I detected
modification of the file by a change in its SHA1 signature. A binary
comparison between the original document revealed some minor
differences, such as the original author's name being partially
overwritten with my name in the document's hidden metadata.
This was very discouraging, and despite going through every single
option in Excel's options, I was unable to stop this behavior. I
personally find this kind of software behavior appalling. It isn't the
particular change in this incident that bothers me; my name isn't
exactly highly classified information. What I do find extremely
bothersome about the behavior of this software is the level to which it
is representative of Microsoft's general attitude toward the consumer's
privacy and security. If one scours through the MS Knowledge Base,
there are dozens of documents pertaining to privacy and security related
issues involving the hidden metadata stored by the Office suite of
products, so obviously it *is* quite an issue. Search even harder, and
maybe you'll even find some specialty-tools to aid you in the removal of
this unwanted information, a rather passive approach to a problem which
could easily be eliminated by allowing users control over the
dissemination of their personal information in the first place, wouldn't
you say? But I'm getting off-topic. Excuse me.
I think the important point here is that *no* software should be
modifying your documents when you simply open them for reading!
Modifications should be user-initiated and confirmed. I think that
represents most people's expectation. Does anyone feel otherwise??
Deliberate or not, I can only conclude that this is a *bug* in Excel.
I haven't even gotten around to testing Word and other
Office-bloatware for similar bugs. I can't wait.
Dave