Hi Eli,

On Tue, Oct 10, 2017 at 6:47 PM Eli Zaretskii <eliz@gnu.org> wrote:
> 2. Execute `(setq-default coding-system-for-read 'utf-8)` (e.g. go to
> scratch, type this command, type C-x C-e).
Why do you need to do step 2?  You shouldn't do that, especially when
using commands that read binary files.  coding-system-for-read is for
temporarily forcing specific decoding of specific text, and should
otherwise be left alone.  And you definitely shouldn't change its
default value.

IOW, this sounds like a clear cockpit error.  Am I missing something?
After carefully reading the documentation for coding-system-for-read, I think you are right. It shouldn't be used like that.

However the snipped including this command to "unicodify" emacs is mentioned in many places including some answers on stackoverflow.

I think you the bug can be closed, thank you.

> 2. https://emacs.stackexchange.com/questions/10046
> 7. https://www.linux.org.ru/forum/security/13718006 (In Russian)

I see no clear evidence that these reports are due to setting
coding-system-for-read.

At least cases #2 and #7 have a very the similar error message (and the same package in one case).

Cheers,
Iakov
--
Iakov Davydov
Postdoc, Department of Computational Biology and Department of Ecology and Evolution, University of Lausanne
Swiss Institute of Bioinformatics