There are many cases where a VM can be better than being directly "on the metal". Its not a huge negative that managed programming languages like java become so popular. Managed languages are a very good thing if you want to know their benefits i would recommend you to read some articles. These...
Ok so as far as i can tell it is the one Garkolym released a while ago, which are completely harmless as mojang confirmed but 1.7.2 is attackable as also a specific version of 1.8 is.
Furthermore there is another exploit which works on versions up to 1.12 that can execute code remotly.
POC of...
Well as we discovered this vulnerability in 1.7.2 as i remembered it was easy but this way got patched some minor versions later. But somehow was still possible in some specific 1.8 versions but here i am not too sure because i am not the one who discovered the execution in 1.8
I dont think thats the problem. minecrafts save format is open documented. thats why there exits so much tools for editing your saves (NBTEdit, MCEdit, WorldPaint...)
I dont think using java for this game is a bad thing but they should really get rid of 2 versions going side on side.
Also the method i am used to cant work at linux because linux is not handling by default such kind of files and the code that is used here is vbscript which i think is also not...
well its kinda like this but its not .exe code appended to the png file. also as of i know this does not apply to all minecraft versions. i tested it on 1.7.9 up to 1.8.X
I knew about this exploit about more than a year, its kinda shocking that it took so long for other to notice.
Btw this exploit does only run on windows because the code is appended on the png file with a special format that is only interpreted by windows.
Dont gonna explain more detail because...
@MarcusD
You can not just pick your working environment. I can say from my own experience that you get used to it. And in most cases, the staff are always nice.
But I also think it's better if you look for the job yourself, rather than your mom just applying for a job somewhere in your name...