Re: MacRoots - embedded executable code?

In article <e0bp07$m11$1$8302bc10@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Peter J Seymour <moz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

Steve W. Jackson wrote:
In article <e01nsn$d93$1$8302bc10@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>,
Peter J Seymour <moz@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:


I've come across a MacRoots (which seems to be an obsolete shareware
program) gedcom file which contains what looks like executable code
contained in some of the NOTE structures.
I'm just curious - can anyone explain what this was for?
Regards
Peter
http://www.gendatam.com


I never heard of MacRoots, having begun my genealogy after its apparent
demise. But since the GEDCOM format is a text-only format, I couldn't
begin to do any more than speculate as to what you may have come across.
Can you show a snippet of what's there? It could perhaps be some kind
of encoding, whereby users of MacRoots would have been able to share a
GEDCOM file that could actually embed some binary information. It's
also possible that its author somehow devised a way of embedding some
linked images, since the GEDCOM standard purports to support such,
though I've never seen it implemented anywhere.

= Steve =
Do a google search on something like "MacRoots" +"0 HEAD" and one of the
listed files will probably exhibit the feature.
Regards
Peter
http://www.gendatam.com

I only got one result and it does indeed exhibit the feature. I'd have
to say that this is a bug in the program. You may recall a fracas not
so very long ago where it was discovered that MS Word was "padding" its
document files with information from memory and therefore posing a
potential privacy risk. This appears to be similar in nature, in that
some binary data, perhaps from the memory occupied by the program, is
getting intermingled with the text of a note. From the looks of the
data surrounding where this occurs, I'd guess that a significant number
of note entries are automatically rendered suspect as a result.

From what I can see, the shareware MacRoots was replaced by the
commercial MacRoots II and then discontinued in 1997 as being unable to
price competitively with other products. It was produced by Itasca
Softworks at that time, and you may be able to find some information
about possibly getting the file opened and saved in a way that could
remove that unless you've got other means available to clean it up.

= Steve =
--
Steve W. Jackson
Montgomery, Alabama
.

Relevant Pages

  • Re: MacRoots - embedded executable code?
    ... Steve W. Jackson wrote: ... Peter J Seymour wrote: ... It could perhaps be some kind of encoding, whereby users of MacRoots would have been able to share a GEDCOM file that could actually embed some binary information. ...
    (soc.genealogy.computing)
  • Re: MacRoots - embedded executable code?
    ... Steve W. Jackson wrote: ... But since the GEDCOM format is a text-only format, I couldn't begin to do any more than speculate as to what you may have come across. ... It could perhaps be some kind of encoding, whereby users of MacRoots would have been able to share a GEDCOM file that could actually embed some binary information. ...
    (soc.genealogy.computing)
  • Re: MacRoots - embedded executable code?
    ... I never heard of MacRoots, having begun my genealogy after its apparent ... But since the GEDCOM format is a text-only format, ... GEDCOM file that could actually embed some binary information. ... Steve W. Jackson ...
    (soc.genealogy.computing)