As such, a Word document which you merely open may imply network activity to target names that are embedded in the document (well, in certificates which are embedded in the document). Word will want to verify this signature, which means first validating some X.509 certificates, which in turn may make your computer download some intermediate CA certificates and/or CRL by following URL found in the certificates themselves. For instance, Word documents can be signed. And, indeed, macro virus do exist.Įven with macros disabled, some nifty attacks against anonymity can be performed with Word files. Thus, "opening" a Word document is quite akin to running a script. Word also supports a complex system of macros, which are, by any reasonable definition, a programming language. Theoretically, a Word file contains the description of a written document, possibly with pictures but, in practice, a Word document can embed just about anything, including executable applications. The warning popup displayed by Tor is a kind of disclaimer: it reminds you that the magic of Tor stops at the downloading, but does not guarantee that the file you obtained is not full of nastiness. If the file you download contains instruction, and these instructions have been designed to be hostile to you and your anonymity, and you execute them nonetheless, well, then you get what you asked for. Some sequences of bytes encode executable instructions that a computer will be eager to run. What you do with these bytes is then completely up to you. A download is: to obtain a sequence of bytes. Tor provides anonymity for the download part.
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