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<title>Minimalistic Data Format – Open Standards – FSFE</title>
<body id="article">
<p id="category">
<a href="/activities/os/os.html">Open Standards</a>
<h1>Minimalistic Standards, because being an Open Standard is not enough.</h1>

<p>A tool is useless without a piece to work on. What are workpieces to our
computers? Data, information, knowledge, opinions, art – in short: Content. It is being
created, processed and transmitted, often directly in an electronic format. More and more
people have a device with an internet connection available, using it to apply evolution
to their ways of working together.

<p>Content is send from one user to another and back. For this it needs to take
on some form: The data-format, which defines rules how content and its
wrapping is handled, what is allowed and how the bit look within a file or over an
online connection. Whoever wants to participate must use a software that understands this
data-format. Otherwise the content would appear like an unkonwn foreign language to the application.
If a data-format doesn’t allow to include pictures, then I simply can’t save pictures with it.
The choice which data-format is used dictates how long I may access the content
and what I may do with it.

<p>When saving a file in a particular data format, a single user probably won’t feel any effect
of his decision. When a IT-department or a public authority
decides which data-format they want to use it has a great impact. The choice of software
going along with the data-format has an effect for years or decades. The more precious
writings, recordings or pictures are saved electronically the more valuable it becomes to be
able to access them.
Conciously or indirectly do these decisions drive the funding of the initial development
or maintenance of data-formats.
Many software producers intentionally try to influence users to
use one of the data-formats the vendor controls. For example for technical schematics of
vehicles, buildings or machinery. The producer of the according CAD application
basically can hold the data for ransom. From the vendor’s point of view this is a strong position
in the upcoming negotiation about the price of the new software version.
Sometimes whole countries end up in such a situation.

<p>Therefore a good data-format can only be an <a
href="/activities/os/def.html">Open Standard</a>.
This requirement however is not enough. The data-format needs to solve a problem properly.
It needs to fit from a functional as well as from a technical point of view.
For this many asspects can be considered. The <a
href="http://jendryschik.de/wsdev/trans/designguide/">Essay by Bert
Bos</a> explains the design principle of the W3C - the organisation which develops the formats
of the world wide web. Among others he mentions efficiency, maintainability, accessibility,
extensibility, learnability, simplicity and durability.</p>

<p>Two central questions hereby are:</p><ul>
<li>How well does the data-format solve the problem? And:</li>
<li>Is it the most simple data-format available or is there an even more simple one?</li></ul>

<p>The first question is self-explanatory: Whoever wants to save, transmit and search within
a text would not want a format for pixel based images – though it is inevitable
using such a format during the first step of scanning papers or facsimiles.</p>

<p>The second question is much more interesting: Is the format as easy as possible and as
complicated as necessary? It hard to design or choose a data-format which correspondents
to this rule of minimalism.</p>

<p>For on there is the bad influence of a patter called <a
by Committee”</a>, which stands for the <a
participation of several decision makers</a> on a technical question. Often many people
are involved on the development of a standard. Decisions about what software is to be used
It easily happens that too many cooks spoil the broth and add more than
actually necessary. The W3C at least <a
is aware of this pattern, says Bos</a>. Many others are not.</p>

<p>In addition many use a checklist when evaluating software solutions. Everyone can
add something to the list. These wishes often are specific ideas for a solution and afterwards
they are compiled into a dense list with all the necessary requirements for the new software.
The software solution checking most marks wins. Most of the time this leads to one data-format
which has many unneeded features. It would be better if wishes were being added
in a problem orientated manner and higher grades are given for solutions which
work with a number of simple, easy extensible and combinable data-formats.</p>

<p>Software manufacturers know their customers. The more features on the checklist are ticked
the more precious a software appears. That is because it can – on a quick glimpse –
serve many needs. Except the need for simple elegance. And that is why the software and the data-format
often ends up looking: Bloated with many features, each directly corresponding to one of the
proposed technical solution idea. This give the software producer another edge:
Any competitor will have a hard time to process the complete format or to offer a superior alternative
complete solution. The customer is forced to buy all or nothing. Why another data-format
when there is one that can do everything?</p>


<p>Every additional feature or guideline complicates the description of the data-format
exponentially. The disadvantages are immane. The developers of a software
that needs to handle a data-format need to understand the description fully. This includes
the whole text as well as all possible combinations of the contained elements. To read less
and understand more leads to a more easy and secure software. This leads to more software
packages that can handle this data-format on a high level. What follows is more competition,
choice and therefore more user for this format.</p>

<p>The more tricky a data-format is, the greater the chance there are
rarely needed features. This format and the implementation are comparable to a
huge and angled house. Some rooms are very populated others are virtually never entered.
Of course such a house is hard to secure. Burglars could open a long forgotten window to
the basement or while walking through the hallway hide something in a dark staircase.</p>

<p>Experts see complexity as the greatest problem for software security. Because of this
many are critical or even hostile towards standards.
<a class="fn" id="ref-complexity" href="#fn-complexity">1</a></p>

<p>To grasp the risks just take a look at how a computer renders fonts: There is the very
commonly used standard ISO/IEC 8859-15 (Latin-9). More than 20, mostly western European
languages could be processed with it. For a single character there are 256 different possibilities.
A new standard namely Unicode (ISO 10646) is supposed to encode all languages. It needs many
more – more than one million – possibilities. In addition a character could be coded with
two different ways. For example with UTF-8 or UCS-2. On one side Unicode is a blessing:
Programmed correctly once an application is prepared to feature hundreds of languages. On
the other hand a programmer can’t possibly predict what could happen with all the characters
in the source code. With the 256 cases with Latin-9 she could. With Unicode this overview
is missing. A feisty attacker might find combinations the developer didn’t think of. This
happens on a regular basis. Here are two examples: 1. (DE)<a
homographische Angriff</a> / (EN)<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IDN_homograph_attack">
the homograph attack</a>
frauds the user with similar looking Internet addresses. Cyrillic from the Unicode-Fonts is
suitable for this. 2. The developers of a well known webserver have been <a
href="https://www.bsi.bund.de/ContentBSI/grundschutz/kataloge/m/m05/m05102.html">pwned by URIs in

<p>It is to no surprise that there are more applications out there that can handle Latin-9
more correctly than Unicode. The problem is identical with every “thicker” specified data-format:
There are applications that don’t understand the exotic features. Especially because there
are so many features so it is impossible to test. The adverts say the software can read the
data-format “X” but whether this works in practice is questionable.</p>

<p>Some data-formats use this problem on purpose: There are different versions. Who likes to
certainty of all applications are compatible needs to express exactly which version.
For example there are three (1.0, 1.1 and 1.2) variants from the Open Document Format (ODF).
Probably with increasing complexity. Are probably many uses in which version 1.0 is
sufficient. But the preset would probably be the newest version the application supports.
For PDF this problem is even more significant. Some <a
href="http://pdfreaders.org/os.de.html">versions or parts of a PDF</a> doesn’t even
suffice as an open standard.</p>

<p>Who likes to understand computers is being told that there are two different things:
Data and programmes. While data is merely processed the programmes contain commands for
the computer. The difference is clarified with a sticky note saying: Jump from a bridge!
I can read this note, write it and pass it on (process) without any problems. But if I
regard it as a command and execute it then I probably will land on my nose. With computers
it’s the same. Data-formats like ODF, Doc an PDF may contain data and commands for automatic
procession (“Macros”) or interactive elements (Javascript). This turns a regular file into
a potential application with commands for your computer. Naturally attackers try to take
advantage of this. Like with the (DE)<a
href="https://www.bsi-fuer-buerger.de/ContentBSIFB/GefahrenImNetz/Schadprogramme/Viren/viren.html">Macro-Viruses</a> / (EN)<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Macro_virus">Macro-Viruses</a>.</p>

<p>Most texts which are transmitted only need a small fraction of that what common
data-formats have to offer on formatting, mark-up or layout. Since decades a simple file
composed of Latin-9 characters can be edited on every computer with a simple text editor
and all word processors. With increasing demands a small part of HTML 2 could suffice for
headlines, lists and links. Or a (DE)<a
href="http://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_(Markup)">simple</a> / (EN)<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creole_%28markup%29">
simple textbased markup</a>, as it is used in Wikis. Wikipedias and Weblogs of the world
proof that lots of content can be expressed with these simple means.</p>

<p>All – except manufacturers of proprietary software – are interested in competing
software and secure products which are interoperable. The minimal rule for data-formats
facilitates all this. It’s meaning is to leave away everything that is not necessarily
needed. The aim is a (DE)<a
href="http://magplot.de/TasteForMakers">simple and elegant design</a> / (EN)<a href="http://www.paulgraham.com/taste.html">
simple and elegant design</a>. A nice solution is a kit with which infinite works may
be created with just a few elements.</p>

<p>Even though there are good reasons to choose a data-format which covers several
requirements we should ask ourselves: “Can’t we do that simpler?”</p>

<h2 id="fn">Footnotes</h2>
<li id="fn-complexity">"Complexity is the main enemy of security",
<a href="http://www.macfergus.com/pc">http://www.macfergus.com/pc</a> [<a href="#ref-complexity">&#8626;</a>]</li>


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<author id="reiter" />
<!-- <date>
<original content="2012-03-23" />
</date> -->
<translator>Philipp Kammerer</translator>