[lojban-beginners] Re: "Windows Metafile Vulnerability"

[Tasci <lojban@synx.dyndns.org>]

* Jorge Llamb?as (jjllambias@gmail.com) wrote:
 
> A "metafile", if I understand the definitions I found, is
> not a file but a specific graphics file format.
I may not know lojban yet, but I can step forward for this.

A metafile, in the Windows sense, is a file that can represent a
different file, whether a graphics file format, or a binary executable
virus.  That's why people are so up in arms about WMF format, and also
why it's so easy to write viruses for it. Purported as an image format,
it's really more like one of those self extracting zip archives.

I might also add meta was originally Greek for "after, while, or
beyond."  People since attributed it to also mean "self-referencing" as
in "metafile" is a file of files, or "an abstraction on top of" as in
"metaphysics" is the physics of physics itself.  Does that help figure
out what metafile is in lojban at all?
-- 
Pandora "Starling/Tasci/Antinomy/Figment/???" synx
pgp key at http://synx.dyndns.org/starling.asc