Talk:Macro and security

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This article mixes two different topics

Macros, as explained at the beginning of this article, can be: keyboard/mouse macros, which automate things on the desktop of a user or in an application, and substitutions which occur on a program's source code, as specified by the developer.

These two uses of the term, although related in a very loose way, cover vastly different usages, and are completely unrelated from a security point of view.

• For example, keyboard/mouse macros can be present in a document without the user's knowledge, and they may cause security problems because they exploit security breaches in the software used to display the document (e.g. a word processor).
• On the other hand, C or LISP macros are present in the source code of a program because the developer willingly wrote them (or the developer of some separate library did so), and their use may make it more likely for some classes of bugs to occur. However, this is the case for any language (mis-)feature, for example the availability of pointers in a language introduces another class of bugs which become more likely to occur. This is not a security issue per se, and other (mis-)features of programming languages and their corresponding classes of bugs are not covered in this article.

I feel that this article should become a disambiguation page, pointing to two articles:

• One article describing the security issues related to keyboard/mouse, VBA etc. macros.
• One article describing the pitfalls of macros in programming languages (C-like macros, but also more evolved macro systems like those of LISP or the variants of Scheme).

Do others agree/disagree that this change would be beneficial?

Furthermore, the tone of this article feels more like a blog article, rather than a Wikipedia article.

Jahvascriptmaniac (talk) 13:41, 24 February 2018 (UTC)

The article is a dumpster fire, yes. The title is an indication that it's about two things (two other aspects than you mention). Any title with the word "and" in it is clearly about two things. But, the topic is probably actually "macro security" or "security issues related to macros". None-the-less, I do not think this topic warrants its own article. IMO, the content should be merged into macro (computer science). In fact, based on how the info is structured here I wonder if it was factored out of that article at some time in the past. Stevebroshar (talk) 14:30, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Junk

This article is, like, weird man. The entire "Compiler error" section appears to be nonsense, for example William M. Connolley (talk) 21:39, 21 March 2021 (UTC)

I'm kinda doubtful this article should even exist. But I'll make some efforts to fix it, mostly by chopping stuff out (the compiler error section for example) William M. Connolley (talk) 19:24, 1 April 2021 (UTC)

I don't see "Compiler error" so must have been removed. I also edited the article. I could enhance the c preprocessor info and some of the VBA virus info, but most of the VBA virus info is too convoluted to understand. Stevebroshar (talk) 15:46, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Merge or rename

The name of the article is not good: macro and security. Which one is it? I think it's about macro security (no and). But, it's hardly comprehensive. It's really about bugs due to C preprocessor macros (hardly a security thing) and VBA macros. To sum it up in a humorous way: this article is a dumper fire.

But what to do?

I'd say the c preprocessors stuff needs to go. Maybe merge the info to c preprocessor or macro (computer science).

As for the VBA stuff: IDK. VBA is dead, isn't it? Delete this page? Merge content into and redirect to macro (computer science)? Rename this page to VBA macro virus or something? Stevebroshar (talk) 15:47, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

Go for it William M. Connolley (talk) 16:32, 13 January 2025 (UTC)

I moved the VBA section to Visual Basic for Applications and the c preprocessor info to c preprocessor Stevebroshar (talk) 01:34, 14 January 2025 (UTC)