Re: Re: Notebook that auto-executes when opened?
- To: mathgroup at smc.vnet.net
- Subject: [mg97350] Re: [mg97286] Re: Notebook that auto-executes when opened?
- From: David Bakin <davidbak at gmail.com>
- Date: Wed, 11 Mar 2009 04:26:08 -0500 (EST)
- References: <gp2bgq$911$1@smc.vnet.net> <gp2qf0$d07$1@smc.vnet.net>
Now that the ability to load data off the net is built-in to Mathematica
(paclets) there needs to be a sandboxing mode so that you can load
Mathematica programs off the net and run them without danger.
Then we could safely have a database of potential newbie errors out on the
web somewhere, that could be autoloaded when an error occurred, ....
On Tue, Mar 10, 2009 at 3:33 AM, AES <siegman at stanford.edu> wrote:
> AES wrote:
>
> > Is it possible to set an option for a notebook such that it automatically
> > begins executing when opened? -- that is, when the nb icon is
> dbl-clicked?
>
> and Jens-Peer Kuska <kuska at informatik.uni-leipzig.de> replied:
>
> > no, it would be the first Mathematica written virus
> >
> > My favorite command would be
> >
> > DeleteFile/@ FileNames["*.*", {"C:\\"}, 4]
>
>
> Interesting point, and one I'd certainly not thought of -- although I
> was asking about creating this capability in notebooks that I'd write
> myself, for myself, not ones to be distributed to others.
>
> And in any case, if you were malevolent in this fashion, could you not
> fairly easily hide your favorite command within a closed but still
> executable cell within some large and apparently benevolent nb, which
> you might then make available to other people for them to use in doing
> some apparently useful task?
>
> Or perhaps bury it in a Mathematica package, or demonstration, or ???
> that was then called and executed by this benevolent program? (I'm not
> skilled enough in the complexities of Mathematica to know just what can
> and can't be included in structures other than notebooks.)
>
> Related thought: Should Mathematica perhaps have an option or
> preference (which is normally set to ON by default) under which your
> favorite command, and others like it, would always trigger an "_Are you
> sure_ you want to do this?" dialog before executing? Seems to me many
> of the other apps I use have some capability like this, for protection
> against accident as much as malevolence.
>
>