Leftover data in other files (was Re: Sun StarOffice documents that "phone home".....)

[jsl2 () JEDITECH COM]

On Sat, 2 Sep 2000, Kurt Seifried wrote:

> What concerns me even more is this: under Windows I created a new
> spreadsheet, inserted an image (http://blahblah), saved it and exited, then
> ran it through strings, and saw some data from an email I sent a while ago.
> WTF??? Closed outlook, tried it with starwriter, nothing, tried it again

What Windows did you use? One possible explination is that Windows 95/98 does
not clear RAM or disk blocks before reallocating them to another program or
file. Hence the left over bits of email could just happen to be in that
sector or memory block, and StarCalc did not overwrite that portion. Think of
it as a sparse file whose holes are filled with random junk from other
applications.

Windows NT, as well as any other decent OS, will clear RAM and disk buffers
before giving them to a user-mode app. I would be surprised if Linux suffered
from this problem.

-James