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. > >