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Rupert Goodwins' Diary

Rupert Goodwins ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 19 Dec 2003 17:15 GMT

Friday 19/12/2003
Microsoft has launched its own denial of service attack on the Internet. Well, what else can you call a security advisory that says that before clicking on a link, you should right click, copy, open Notepad, paste the link and inspect it by eye for badness? That's not just one link, that's every link -- at a stroke, slowing down even the broadest of broadband links to a crawl. Imagine the pain of having to do that dance when you're out Googling for gems. The trouble is, of course, that Internet Explorer displays URLs incorrectly when certain characters are present, a trick gleefully seized upon by the ever-growing army of scammers.

This is, or should be, an enormous Christmas present for Opera or Mozilla, who can now bundle up their software and offer it as the ultimate Internet Explorer security patch. And it's the perfect way to leave Microsoft as we wander off into the holly-infested, tinsel-packed holidays: never mind, there's always the New Year Resolution to give up daft security bugs and dafter security advice.

Interesting Christmas Ponderings Number One: why, when you type in 'xmas' to a Nokia or other phone with T9 predicative text, does it spell "Wob". Who is Wob, and woy?

Interesting Christmas Ponderings Number Two: How did Lowestoft schlock rock band The Darkness get away with a Christmas single that is simultaneously camper than a Volkswagen minibus and has a kids' choir singing about bell ends?

On that note, goodbye. See you next year…