...more recent posts
Project Honeypot looks like a very interesting attempt to curb comment spam (well, it's going after a little more than that, but comment spam is what I am interested in.) A "honeypot" is a server put on the web for the sole purpose of monitoring illicit activity (like maybe a server you put on the web that is open to attack, but you mean it to be attacked so you can observe the attackers - they think it is a "real" server but actually it's just a honeypot meant to trap them.) This project has set up many honeypots all over the web and have been silently collecting data on spammers. Now they are ready to release their data set so that anyone can tap into this collective knowledge. They have an Apache 2 module as well as an API. I'm going to try to write something against the API. This will be great if it works!
There is a bug in Quicktime's java handling that opens a pretty serious security hole allowing a malicious website to compromise a users system. This is pretty embarrassing for Apple, not just because it's a serious security hole, but also because it allows for Windows systems with Quicktime installed to be compromised as well (and any computer with iTunes installed has Quicktime installed.) This effects both Firefox (Windows or Mac) and Safari when browsing with java turned on (java, not javascript.) Turning off java in your browser preferences closes the hole. People should definitely do this until a fix is released. (And while this doesn't make it any better - you most likely won't notice any difference browsing with java off since almost no sites use client side java applets.)