Starglider contacted me today to ask me to submit to the Senate a spoilers tag he implemented in his polls mod. In the course of discussion, rendering LaTeX came up, and he has said that he may be able to, with some effort, adapt this LaTeX-to-HTML renderer into the mod he's making. The LaTeX-to-HTML would, as I understand, effectively remove the security threats to the server and still retain functionality.The LaTeX mod you mention appears to hand user-submitted content to the LaTeX program---a full programming language with file access---to render its content. Its security checks are limited to blacklisting a set of known strings, which I find wholly inadequate. While I believe a mathematical rendering package would be useful on this board, this particular mod appears to be a security disaster. I personally wouldn't allow it anywhere near a public web board, and would recommend that you and the Senate not pursue it.
Every few months, a math-intensive thread comes up in SLAM where the need to communicate in symbols is hindered by the lack of an effective communication medium. Moreover, some basic math functions are also used in debate threads; they might be useful in some more technical economic discussions (possibly pertaining to peak oil?), as well as any future sci-fi or fantasy threads. I think a LaTeX renderer would serve the board well for the foreseeable future, if it's possible to implement it now with not too much hassle.
What say you all?