How can you be fooled by the U+202E trick? (2013)

Re:How can you be fooled by the U+202E trick? (2013) by _nalply on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @04:03PM (#30365641)

The Right-To-Left Override (U+202E) does not obscure nor overwrite existing characters. It is an instruction to switch the text direction to right-to-left like for Arabic and Hebrew.

In the article it is shown how this can be misused to show executable files as a different file type:

    file[U+202e]fdp.exe shown as fileexe.pdf
        ~~~~~~~~^^^^^^^
           |       |--- read this right-to-left, i.e. exe.pdf     
           |----------- this is the Unicode character Right-To-Left Override

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re:How can you be fooled by the U+202E trick? (2013) by kazinator on Wednesday February 16, 2022 @06:08PM (#30367116)

It certainly obscures and overwrites. When you replace "fdp.exe" by "exe.pdf", you're obscuring and overwriting the leading "f" by "e", then the "d" by "x" and so on.

[ Parent | on HN ]