
I'm sure it is, and I am not amused.  Every time I read that part of the
TIFF spec, it infuriates me- and I'm none too happy about the
complexity of the spec anyway- because I think their "arbitrary but
carefully chosen number" is neither.  Additionally, I find their
choice of 4 bytes to begin a file with meaningless of themselves- why
not just use the letters "TIFF"?

(And no, I don't think they should have bothered to support both word
orders either- and I've found that many TIFF readers actually
don't.)