---

---

Rhys Jeremiah has been working in IT after graduating from Bristol University with a degree in mathematics. He started writing database applications for a large insurance company and quickly moved into web development, the largest site for a major international motor manufacturer. Although now teaching mathematics, he still manages some IT work. He currently lives in Cardiff, Wales with Sarah, his wife, and their children Lloyd and Carys.

Geetesh: Tell us more about your Extract Flash product, and what inspired you to create this.

Rhys: As is often common, the reason for creating the Extract Flash product was to solve a problem that could have easily been avoided. The company I was working for at the time was a major client of a marketing firm here in the UK. Last thing on a Friday afternoon, we were asked to update a flash file on a website and that the replacement file would be winging its way to us via email very soon. None of us in the office were quite prepared for the fact that the file had been placed into a PowerPoint presentation. It seemed that the last thing the marketing company did before the weekend was to send that file as numerous phone calls to get the original file failed. So we had a problem.

I noticed that it was possible to drag and drop the embedded Flash object between Office products and even drop it onto the desktop as a scrap file (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/138275). So I reasoned that the file must contain the Flash file that we were searching for. Hence it was worth digging a bit deeper. On opening the scrap file in a binary editor, I was able to locate the header block of the SWF file and without too much effort it was the possible to pull the binary data out and write it back to disk. The reason I wrote an application to do this is that I enjoy the challenge of trying something new, and also providing a useful tool to the community. In theory the scrap approach would work for any type of embedded object so long as the header block could be read and processed. With a small amount of knowledge it would be possible to change the file to search a binary file for any header block and extract the embedded data. From memory I think that SWF files are held in PowerPoint files without encryption so you don't necessarily need to mess about with the scrap file.

Geetesh: Many people believe that their embedded Flash content in a PowerPoint slide is secure -- so this does prove them wrong. How important is it for them to be aware of this, and would the scrap approach also work with any other embedded content in Microsoft Office documents.

Rhys: From my experience many people think that all embedded files in Office documents are secure. I can't count how many times someone has sent me a Word document containing loads of images. I've never really considered the people actually use this method to protect their files. It's certainly naive to approach security in this fashion. Personally I think that the only way to secure your sensitive data is not to give it away, as soon as you release any information you lose the ability to control the distribution. If you really want to secure your embedded content don't embed it.

Categories: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash

Labels: interviews, powerpoint, powerpoint_flash

3 comments

Links to this post

---

Links to this post:

Create a Link

Archives:

April 2003  |  May 2003  |  December 2003  |  January 2004  |  February 2004  |  March 2004  |  April 2004  |  May 2004  |  June 2004  |  July 2004  |  August 2004  |  September 2004  |  October 2004  |  November 2004  |  December 2004  |  January 2005  |  February 2005  |  March 2005  |  April 2005  |  May 2005  |  June 2005  |  July 2005  |  August 2005  |  September 2005  |  October 2005  |  November 2005  |  December 2005  |  January 2006  |  February 2006  |  March 2006  |  April 2006  |  May 2006  |  June 2006  |  July 2006  |  August 2006  |  September 2006  |  October 2006  |  November 2006  |  December 2006  |  January 2007  |  February 2007  |  March 2007  |  April 2007  |  May 2007  |  June 2007  |  July 2007  |  August 2007  |  September 2007  |  October 2007  |  November 2007  |  December 2007  |  January 2008  |  February 2008  |  March 2008  |  April 2008  |  May 2008  |  June 2008  |  July 2008  |  August 2008  |  September 2008  |  October 2008  |  November 2008  |  December 2008  |  January 2009  |  February 2009  |  March 2009  |  April 2009  |  May 2009  |  June 2009  |  July 2009  |  August 2009  |  September 2009  |  October 2009  |  November 2009  |  December 2009  |  January 2010  |  February 2010  |  March 2010  |