Unlike Word files, there is no chance of a Macro Virus in them. I sent our family lawyer some documents converted to Text by request.
Comically the use of curl | bash managed to shoehorn them in there, and there were the occasional terminal escape characters that could do funny and sometimes mischievous things.<p>There used to be something of a game of making specific files that would change screen colors or play songs off terminal bells, etc, tailored for specific terminals or command prompt windows. I remember a few short animated sequences using various backspaces and colors that only really worked if you could expect the text to be loaded at specific baud rates or in specific BBS software.
You can block macros in Word, so you're only left with unformatted downsides?
Weeeell... Ya say that, but:<p>Many years ago someone "infected" my computer with a "manual virus": A printed-out sheet of paper placed on top of the computer, telling me to delete all my hard drive's files myself, then photocopy the sheet and put both copies on nearby computers.<p>It was obviously a joke. But in the "modern" agentic era, the same thing in a text file is slightly more realistic as a threat...
No macro viruses but if your family lawyer uses some LLM-powered thingy in his workflow it might add a new dimension: prompt manipulation/injection attacks. A good spot to hide these would be at about ⅔ distance inside some wall of legalese at the beginning or end of a document since hardly anyone ever reads those.
I've known people one-shot by pure text, like Atlas Shrugged, The Communist Manifesto, The Bible, The Qur'an, The Selfish Gene, Godel Escher and Bach, etc. Don't underestimate text.
A clever quip, but I have to point out that most adherents for a given ideology have never actually read the canonical text of their ideology. The Bible particularly was generally inaccessible to laypeople for a ~1000 year period, who would typically learn everything they knew about it filtered through the preachers of the Church. Even today with easy access, a majority of Christians have not read it.
The real version of the information hazard in <i>Snow Crash</i>.
What exactly does “one shot” mean here?
Famous American detective TV show <i>True Detective</i> had the hero annoy his colleague by referring to religion as "language virus that rewrites pathways in the brain" and thereby "dulls critical thinking". In other words, a lot people read shit and it fries their mixers. Obviously, it can also work the other way. Et cetera.
Infected by a packet of ideas that profoundly alters your outlook on life, for good or ill like a mind virus. I've been shot several times, it's thrilling. For me it's always text that does it.