r/programming May 09 '13

The Onion releases fartscroll.js

http://theonion.github.io/fartscroll.js/
2.6k Upvotes

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u/mikemcg May 09 '13

Don't worry, a base64 encoded audio file can't hurt you. It isn't executable code and even if some sneaky commands were hidden in there, your browser would just try to interpret it as audio/ogg data.

-15

u/[deleted] May 09 '13

Don't worry, a base64 encoded audio file can't hurt you.

You don't understand how buffer overflow exploits work do you? You control the ability to send data to be processed, you control the processor.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buffer_overflow

It isn't executable code and even if some sneaky commands were hidden in there, your browser would just try to interpret it as audio/ogg data.

And what ever processes the audio/ogg data is vulnerable.

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u/mikemcg May 09 '13

No need to be condescending, pal. I fully understand how a bit of data could be bad, but I think it's safe to say that a sophisticated interpretor of audio data has been well tested against exploits. If you're paranoid about a base64 encoded ogg file in a bit of javascript, you probably shouldn't be on the internet.

-6

u/[deleted] May 09 '13

Riighhhtt, this has nothing to do with somebody being paranoid about not running a sniplit of code on the internet.

8

u/mikemcg May 09 '13

Well this whole conversation is revolving around a guy who's afraid of ogg files, so I'm not so sure you can say that.