Technocrank

Icon

It Done Broke.

Firefox 3.5 JavaScript Security Bug

Just as I was starting to feel settled in and enjoying the speed of Firefox 3.5 (with Gears – yay!), a security vulnerability has been found in the JIT JavaScript engine that makes FF3.5 so snappy.  The temporary solution is to go into about:config and disable it.

I’m very, very crankie right now.  I swear to god, I hope they’re quick about fixing it.  Safari is feeling mighty close…

BT Home Hub 2 Router Security “Feature”

I was wondering why my BT Home Hub 2.0 router would keep resetting/rebooting after about 3 minutes of a outbound activity.  Benign things like uploading FTP files to my webserver.  Infuriating, since my client was waiting for these files and it was looking like I’d have to courier DVDs across the ocean.

This had been happening for months and I started to get suspicious that it might be BT doing something sneaky like sending a reboot command to the router.  After all, they update the firmware remotely and silently with out telling you.  Who knows what else they can do?

Read the rest of this entry »

Password Masking

Password masking is the HTML thingy that replaces your password characters with bullet-points as you type.  It may not be the perfect or most effective way to stop snoopers, but it’s not meant to be.  It’s only meant to be good enough to stop most snoopers – at the very least make it somewhat inconvenient.  And it covers casual as well as determined distance creepers with binoculars.  He says:

More importantly, there’s usually nobody looking over your shoulder when you log in to a website. It’s just you, sitting all alone in your office, suffering reduced usability to protect against a non-issue.

While I agree with Jakob’s general observations about usability and the apparent cost of failed password attempts, I think the alternative isn’t quite acceptable.  Because frankly, we’re not all sitting alone in our office.  Many of us, are in fact, in the real world…like airports and coffee shops.

Read the rest of this entry »

Twitter: crankietech

RSS This Day In Tech (From Wired)

  • An error has occurred, which probably means the feed is down. Try again later.