The toman diaries

Word security 'feature' ?

fredag, januar 09, 2004

It's weird. Just when you start believing Microsoft will do security out of the box, I'm utterly dissapointed again. - Not that I ever really believed MS actually would put security ahead of marketing, but there you go.

MS Word has a feature letting you password protect documents you create in the proggy. I never used it, and I didn't even find it when looking. Maybe I just have the wrong version of windows (the one without MS Office).
This password thing has been compromized such that anyone can make modifications to the file without a password.

Anyway, my point is: When is security a 'feature'? If it says password protect, it damn well means password protect, not 'let the user opening this document believe it is password-protected by displaying a prompt when she tries to save it'. It's almost like putting a Do not wreck sign in front of your newly sown lawn which is next to a kindergarden where kids play with dogs. -- Granted, the bypassing of passwords require some techie skills and a hex-editor, but thats not the point. A password is something you use to protect your documents, not something you use to hinder non-techies from modifying them.

What I do when creating something secret is use Cryptext, but that will not let me 'share' the document in whole or in parts like Word does with its feature. - Which is probably pretty useful in a working enviroment, but it again proves MS lack of security-minded employees.