Talk:Right-to-left mark

Reverting good-faith edit by DePiep
Adding "RLM" to the text in box which is supposed to be, according to the text of the article, the rendered version of the HTML, is erroneous and confusing. If someone doesn't like this, I suggest that they take the trouble to add separate boxes for both the HTML source code and the rendered result (i.e., four separate boxes). TheGoblin (talk) 20:33, 26 March 2011 (UTC)

Deleting Security section because it’s entirely wrong and/or irrelevant to RLM
I’m about to delete the Security section, because it’s almost all wrong, almost all irrelevant to RLM, and all in the wrong article. It contains these claims:


 * RLM can be used to fake extensions, abcd[RLM]cod.fghijk.exe being rendered as abcdexe.kjihgf.doc. Factually inaccurate: RLM only affects directionally-weak or -neutral characters surrounded by LTR on one side and RTL on the other (see Bidirectional_text). In order to achieve the alleged result, you need an BiDi embed, override or isolate control character; ALM/RLM/LRM are insufficient.


 * RLM can be used to make the compiler perceive different code from the reader. Again factually inaccurate: you need embed/override/isolate characters to achieve this. ALM/RLM/LRM are not implicated in the Trojan Source attack—not even mentioned in the paper, in fact, and its Table 1 lists the affected characters (all the other Bidi_Control characters, but not ALM/RLM/LRM).


 * Visual Studio Code highlights RTL characters since version 1.62 released on October 2021. Badly worded: “RTL characters” would mean things like normal Hebrew letters; what was intended was BiDi control characters. Yes, RLM is one of these characters, but it’s not the only one; this info belongs on Bidirectional text instead, it’s not notable here—especially once the rest of the Security section has been removed.

A new section for it all in Bidirectional text is probably warranted. I contemplated moving the section there, but it’s so poorly drafted that it needs a complete and aggressive rewrite, and I don’t feel like undertaking to do that now; at present, I think nothing is better than this something.

Chris Morgan (talk) 04:06, 29 December 2021 (UTC)