AOPA Flight Planner - Microsoft only?

"Dylan Smith" wrote in message
...
In article , Peter Duniho wrote:
architectural problem that just giving your file an .exe extension
makes
them executable, and therefore if you find another bug like the MIME
bugs OE suffered from, you can leverage it to make executables attached
to email run automatically.

As opposed to Unix where you can attempt to run ANY file, regardless of
extension? I'm not sure what your point here is.

My point is that since under Unix, when email arrives, attachments don't
have the execute bit. They can't. They aren't on the filesystem. You
therefore can't double-click an executable attachment to run it from
your email client which is a GOOD thing. A bug in the email client that
automatically opens attachments can't be leveraged to run executables,
as it has with Outlook Express. MIME type bugs can't be exploited to
trick the mail client into automatically running executables - because
the file never has execute permission when it's sitting in your inbox.

That's not so. There is nothing stopping an email client from saving the
file, and setting the execute bit, if it finds (say by examining magic
words) that it is being asked to open an executable. In the environment of
trust backed up by knowledge that was briefly envisioned in the early 90's
it would have been the right thing to do, but there was few UNIX GUI mail
clients around. In the shadow of well-publicized Windows attacks, I doubt
there are any UNIX mail clients that do so, but you're not talking about a
fundamental difference in OS design.

What should a UNIX mail client do when you doubleclick an attachment with a
..sh extension? Whether you pipe a stream to the interpreter os save a temp
file, a shell script can screw you just as badly as an executable. IIRC,
dtmail would have done this while it was alive.


-- David Brooks

In article , David Brooks wrote:
My point is that since under Unix, when email arrives, attachments don't
have the execute bit. They can't. They aren't on the filesystem. You

That's not so. There is nothing stopping an email client from saving the
file, and setting the execute bit, if it finds (say by examining magic
words)

You're right - but the difference is if you are reusing code (which is a
good thing) and use the operating system's API to figure out what to do
with an attached file, under Windows, the OS bits will see ".exe" and
try and run it. The Unix APIs need to see an execute permission on the
filesystem to do the same thing. The attachment won't have it.

Under Windows, you have an Allow, Deny situation. You have to explicitly
code the email client to NOT do the default action. Under Unix you
essentially have a Deny, Allow situation. Therefore, you'd have to write
the client to explicitly ALLOW the thing to execute.

What should a UNIX mail client do when you doubleclick an attachment with a
.sh extension?

Open it in 'vi' of course. It doesn't have the execute bit set.

--
Dylan Smith, Castletown, Isle of Man
Flying: http://www.dylansmith.net
Frontier Elite Universe: http://www.alioth.net
"Maintain thine airspeed, lest the ground come up and smite thee"

Bob wrote:

David Brooks wrote:


Oh, wait, there was a web-based planner, wasn't there. I take back; let's
ask AOPA to restore it. Then I can run it from Redhat Linux running in
Virtual PC on my XP laptop :-)


The web based planner was just CSC DUATS with the AOPA logo in front of it.

PLUS links from various results pages to the AOPA airport
directory, approach plates, etc.

I'm using CSC again since the new and improved AOPA
program doesn't run on Unix and I miss those features.

Still, I understand that the majority rules (unless its in
politics).

I've tried it using virtual pc on my powerbook 1.33 ghz and it works
just fine. I also use Safelog on my vpc because there's not much in the
way of logbooks on the mac and this works fine too. I think it's
extremely comfortable to be able to use software that's too specialized
to ever get released for the mac without needing 2 computers.

Funny how it always ends up a raging OS war though.... "My daddy is
stronger than your daddy"!

On 2004-03-18 19:05:34 -0500, Andrew Gideon said:

I tried to go to the AOPA Flight Planning web page today, and found
that the only option remaining is to download a Microsoft-only
application. This seems annoying.

Sure, I was able to go directly to the duat web site, and it was fine.
But I'm a member of AOPA, and they've eliminated a benefit from my use
merely because I prefer to use a more robust computing environment.

Especially given what's going on with viruses, worms, zombie machines,
and the like, requiring that AOPA members used one particular unsafe
platform to exercise an organization benefit seems foolish.

Has this issue been raised to AOPA and ignored? Is something in the
works for the rest of us? Anyone here know what's going on?

- Andrew

"Peter Duniho" wrote in message
...

I'd be curious to see what happened to the Windows Logo program. It was
instituted when Win95 was released, and had a long list of strict
requirements a program had to meet, otherwise the Windows logo could not
be
displayed on product packaging. I know in the year or so after, it got
watered down a lot.

I haven't checked up on it lately to see if it's still around, or what it
requires if it is. It ought to require that software run under restricted
accounts unless there's a good reason for them not to.

It is still around, and the "designed for Windows XP" logo does require that
software will run under restricted accounts and in a multi-session
environment (with Fast User Switching or Terminal Server). Of course there's
an exception for features or entire products whose whole purpose requires
more privileges, such as system administration or monitoring. A problem is
that you can sell unlogo'ed software with no problem, and the home market is
pretty much unaware of the meaning of the logo or at least its various
instantiations. I dare say we could pump up awareness of it, but then we
might run into accusations of trying to close the market. Also, many people
give all of their accounts admin privileges routinely, partly because of the
large body of game software (e.g. Flight Sim 2002, I think :-( ) that
requires admin privileges for, now, no particularly good reason.

-- David Brooks

One's Too Many wrote:

For those folks who want to say that since MS is the majority
operating system and all others don't matter becasue they are an
unimportant minoroty, how would you feel if all of a sudden AOPA
started only offering general aviation support for people who own and
fly Cessnas just because there are more of them than any other GA
single-engine plane and used the excuse that all other brands of
aircraft are a minority and don't matter to them?

Again. AOPA is NOT doing this. Jeppesen is.

George Patterson
Battle, n; A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would
not yield to the tongue.

G.R. Patterson III wrote:

Again. AOPA is NOT doing this. Jeppesen is.

Did Jeppesen buy AOPA or do they have pictures of
AOPA management in compromising positions or something?

Doug Carter wrote:

G.R. Patterson III wrote:

Again. AOPA is NOT doing this. Jeppesen is.

Did Jeppesen buy AOPA or do they have pictures of
AOPA management in compromising positions or something?

No. Jeppesen produced the program. AOPA provides it to their members for free.
If you want the program to support something besides Windows, talk to Jep.

George Patterson
Battle, n; A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that would
not yield to the tongue.

G.R. Patterson III wrote:

Again. AOPA is NOT doing this. Jeppesen is.

Did Jeppesen buy AOPA or do they have pictures of
AOPA management in compromising positions or something?

No. Jeppesen produced the program. AOPA provides it to their members for free.
If you want the program to support something besides Windows, talk to Jep.

This could be interpreted as an assertion that AOPA has no
choice but to endorse
and promote Jeppesen's product and stop their support of
the CSC version.


I think it rather more likely that AOPA management decided
to switch to Jeppesen
because of the improved TFR support and the more
impressive graphics despite
the loss of non Microsoft equipped users.

As an AOPA member I hope Jeppesen provides the program for
free to AOPA; that
would be nice.

Bottom line is that it was supplied for very limited cost, and under such
circumstances, notwithstanding the various merits of different OS platforms,
it is better that it supports the greatest percentage of users.


"G.R. Patterson III" wrote in message
...


Doug Carter wrote:

G.R. Patterson III wrote:

Again. AOPA is NOT doing this. Jeppesen is.

Did Jeppesen buy AOPA or do they have pictures of
AOPA management in compromising positions or something?

No. Jeppesen produced the program. AOPA provides it to their members for
free.
If you want the program to support something besides Windows, talk to Jep.

George Patterson
Battle, n; A method of untying with the teeth a political knot that
would
not yield to the tongue.