Is a New Vulnerability the Tip of the Perl Iceberg?, Dec 08, 2005

It's probably not the basis for a new network worm, but Perl format strings could be fertile ground for more targeted hacking.

It's a tragedy, and Sender ID will soon be history. Microsoft's uncompromising licensing attitudes show a blindness worthy of King Lear.

Anti-virus software is definitely a challenge for the open-source model, and while there is at least one active program, there's no good evidence of how well it works.

The anti-virus business is an interesting one. On the one hand, it's amazingly competitive on a worldwide basis, even if Symantec dominates the U.S. consumer market; there are a lot of companies in this business. But it's also a disappointing business technologically. The companies are not out to solve a problem as much as to acquire an annuity stream in the form of subscriptions for signature updates.

Webmaster's note: This flaw does not effect Linux systems

The Mozilla Foundation has confirmed findings that its Mozilla and Firefox browsers are vulnerable to attacks using the "shell:" scheme, which execute arbitrary code under Windows without the user having to click a link.

Security researchers are reporting another security issue in Web browsing under Windows, but this time Internet Explorer is not the culprit. The Mozilla Foundation's Mozilla and Firefox are reported as vulnerable.