On 06/24/2015 01:29 PM, Grant Edwards wrote:
On 2015-06-24, Randall Smith <rand...@tnr.cc> wrote:
On 06/24/2015 06:36 AM, Steven D'Aprano wrote:
I don't understand how mangling the data is supposed to protect the
recipient. Don't they have the ability unmangle the data, and thus
expose themselves to whatever nasties are in the files?
They never look at the data and wouldn't care to unmangle it.
I obviously don't "get it". If the recipient is never going look at
the data or unmangle it, why not convert every received file to a
single null byte? That way you save on disk space as well --
especially if you just create links for all files after the initial
one. ;)
[I supposed next you're going to tell me that Windows filesystems
don't support links.]
The purpose is primarily to prevent automated software (file
indexers, virus scanners) from doing bad things to the data.
Life under windows must be more tiresome than I imagined (or could
imagine) if you have to jump through such hoops to keep "automated
software" from doing bad things to your data files.
These are machines storing chunks of other people's data. The data
owner chunks a file, compresses and encrypts it, then sends it to
several storage servers. The storage server might be a Raspberry PI
with a USB disk or a Windows XP machine - I can't know which.
I don't use Windows and don't recommend it for this software.
Nevertheless, many people do use it.
-Randall
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