Trojan horse FIX for Rnmail and Pnews

[Bill Carpenter]

In article <6811 at rosevax.Rosemount.COM> news at rosevax.Rosemount.COM (News administrator) writes:

:  [discussion of "vi" modeline misfeature]
:  Now for a different question... any other common editors (emacs, etc) with
:  a similar hook?  Any way to disable it?

In GNU emacs there is a similar hazard ("find a file" means, roughly,
fetch it into the editor):

; inhibit-local-variables's value is t
; 
; Documentation:
; *Non-nil means query before obeying a file's local-variables list.
; This applies when the local-variables list is scanned automatically
; after you find a file.  If you explicitly request such a scan with
; M-x normal-mode, there is no query, regardless of this variable.

Alas, the default is nil, meaning that stuff (arbitrary GNU emacs
commands) can happen to you automatically.  On systems where I have an
influence on the installation, I get this put in globally (practically
the only non-standard thing I want in "site-init.el"):

	(setq inhibit-local-variables t)

Any users who are curious about this and/or want to turn it on for
themselves can read about it and set it to nil on their own accord.
BTW, this thing is particularly hazardous to people who use GNU emacs
"rmail" for reading their mail.  You can cause them discomfort from
far, far away.  I've demonstrated this to doubters by sending them
mail that splits their windows vertically when they read it.
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   Bill Carpenter         att!ho5cad!wjc  or  attmail!bill