Corrigendum #9

[David Starner]

On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 2:53 PM, Markus Scherer <markus.icu at gmail.com> wrote:
> On Mon, Jun 2, 2014 at 1:32 PM, David Starner <prosfilaes at gmail.com> wrote:
>>
>> I would especially discourage any web browser from handling
>> these; they're noncharacters used for unknown purposes that are
>> undisplayable and if used carelessly for their stated purpose, can
>> probably trigger serious bugs in some lamebrained utility.
>
>
> I don't expect "handling these" in web browsers and lamebrained utilities. I
> expect "treat like unassigned code points".

So certain programs can't use noncharacters internally because some
people want to interchange them? That doesn't seem like what
noncharacters should be used for.

Unix utilities shouldn't usually go to the trouble of messing with
them; limiting the number of changes needed for Unicode was the whole
point of UTF-8. Any program transferring them across the Internet as
text should filter them, IMO; either some lamebrained utility will
open a security hole by using them and not filtering first, or
something will filter them after security checks have been done, or
something. Unless it's a completely trusted system, text files with
these characters should be treated with extreme prejudice by the first
thing that receives them over the net.

-- 
Kie ekzistas vivo, ekzistas espero.