Re: Microsoft Word documents that "phone" home

[Michael Wojcik <Michael.Wojcik () MERANT COM>]

Confirmed that MS WordView 97 will also try to resolve image URLs.

The Foundation advisory notes that ZoneAlarm may be used to prevent Word and
other specific applications from making network connections.  I've just
verified that Norton Internet Security can be configured to catch and block
(automatically or on a per-incident basis) connection attempts from
WordView; blocking other Office apps should work just as well.  If NIS is
configured in high-security mode, it will catch connections for which no
rule exists yet, so you don't have to pre-configure block rules for all of
your Office apps.

Michael Wojcik             michael.wojcik () merant com
MERANT
Department of English, Miami University


> -----Original Message-----
> From: Richard M. Smith [mailto:rms () PRIVACYFOUNDATION ORG]
> Sent: Wednesday, August 30, 2000 9:53 AM

> [snip: web bugs in Word documents]

> The complete advisory is available at the Foundation's
> Web site:
>
>    http://www.privacyfoundation.org/advisories/advWordBugs.html