Questions about computer safety concerns when running TeX programs or viewing TeX-created documents. For questions about managing digital rights (e.g. password-protected documents) use the {drm} tag.
33
votes
1answer
472 views
Is luatex as secure as pdftex?
My texmf.cnf file contains these lines:
% Allow TeX \openin, \openout, or \input on filenames starting with `.'
% (e.g., .rhosts) or outside the current tree (e.g., /etc/passwd)?
% a (any) : ...
24
votes
3answers
445 views
Is Arara safe/secure
I have just begun playing around with arara and I am curious if there are safety/security concerns. For example, pdflatex from TeX Live has shell escape disabled by default. If the TeX Live team think ...
21
votes
3answers
748 views
How can I safely compile other people's LaTeX documents?
I am a programmer and as part of a website I need to be able to take LaTeX source files and compile them, then return the pdf to the user. This seems dangerous since a malicious user could e.g. read ...
20
votes
4answers
1k views
Digital signature
I have recently been asked to add a digital signature to a report (which I wrote using pdflatex). Is there such a mechanism in the TeX/LaTeX world or am I better of using external software to verify ...
14
votes
1answer
2k views
How do I create a PDF file that can be digitally signed?
We are using Acrobat digital signatures in my organization.
With Acrobat Professional you can put in a signature block that allows signing with a client-side digital signature. This is something ...
10
votes
1answer
184 views
How do CTAN maintainers make sure all the uploaded packages and classess in CTAN are free of malicious code?
There are a large number of packages (plus some classes) uploaded and updated in CTAN (other mirrors as well). How do the CTAN maintainers make sure the uploaded stuff is free of malicious code? Do ...
9
votes
2answers
142 views
Is it possible to prevent users from seeing the package codes while they still can make use of its publicly exposed macros?
Assume that I have a confidential package that nobody is allowed to see the source code. The users are only allowed to use the public macros. This question is closely related to my other question.
...
9
votes
3answers
182 views
Is it necessary to disable virus scanner during TeX Live installation, and if so, why?
Is it necessary to disable virus scanner during TeX Live installation, and if so, why?
8
votes
3answers
525 views
What analysis of Texlive's restricted permissions model exists?
TH. writes, in How should one use \write18 with BibTeX:
Background
Now that TeX Live 2010 has a restricted \write18, I figured it'd be reasonable to update my cv which uses the bibunits package ...
5
votes
1answer
153 views
Escaping special LaTeX characters in user-defined input text
Background
Users can provide text, which is transformed using XSL into a LaTeX document. The XSL template that transforms the XML document (containing user-defined text) currently resembles:
...
3
votes
1answer
113 views
XeLaTeX inside chroot jail
I'm using xetex 3.1415926-2.2-0.9995.2 (TeX Live 2009/Debian).
I'm trying to run xelatex inside chroot jail.
I've copied following binaries and directories:
pdftex
bibtex
xdvipdfmx
xelatex
...
2
votes
2answers
164 views
Disable including of system files [duplicate]
Possible Duplicate:
How can I safely compile other people's LaTeX documents?
I've got a Linux server that is rendering LaTeX documents, I want to disable the access of LaTeX to system ...
1
vote
0answers
157 views
Equivalent to TeXLive's --restricted-shell-escape for MiKTeX?
I often work on Windows, so need to use MiKTeX. I recently found the minted package, which needs to call the external command pygmentize. I currently call xelatex with the -shell-escape option to ...
