July 16, 2004

Strike Out

[strike out]

Microsoft Word is everywhere. I have used versions of Word for over a decade, ever since I abandon Word Perfect 4.2 for Dos and began using Word 2.0 for Widows 3.11.

But Word's .doc files are full of stuff that most people never see, including revisions and old data. someone with the right tools can resurrect that "hidden" data. ?So be careful when sending out a .doc file. It may tell the recipient more than you wanted them to know, as this example shows:


This is not an exciting story: I happened to be browsing aimlessly through case studies and other publications released by Microsoft as a part of their "Get the facts" initiative. At one point, I stumbled upon a Word file I wanted to read - and as soon as I ran it through wvWare, I noticed there is a good deal of amusing change tracking information still recorded within the document. Naturally, publishing documents with "collaboration" data is not unheard of in the corporate world, but the fact Microsoft had became a victim of their own technology, and had failed to run their own tools against these publications makes it more entertaining.

Posted by georgegmacdonald at July 16, 2004 08:00 PM