Another huge security hole …

Another huge security hole in Microsoft’s IIS web server software (which uses ASP) has been found. To see if your IIS server using ASP-backed pages is vulnerable, visit this site and try to see your ASP source code. This security hole allows anyone with a web browser to view the ASP source code of any web site using IIS and ASP together. This includes ASP-backed e-commerce pages as well as ASP-pages that store private data.

A couple of readers have written in saying that this vulnerability was first reported back in January. Still, it’s interesting to look behind the scenes of some major sites who haven’t patched their server software. Gap.com and JCPenney.com are two I’m aware of.

Onclave, a startup that promises to “connect people to people to information” has a very informative collaborative weblog on their site. I’ll be back. [Great job, Elan.]

CamWorld is 100% Elián Gonzales free. Go read Chuck Taggart’s comments. I’m of the same opinion.

I’ve been re-reading Eric Raymond’s The Cathedral and the Bazaar (and follow-up essays), and have zeroed in on the concept of the hacker community being a gift culture. It’s interesting to see the open source movement being driven by what Raymond calls “egoboo” [ego boosting] and reputation-building project management. And I can’t help but think about how this concept might change the way our society functions. Considering that our lives are increasingly dominated by electronic devices and software, the worlds and cultures of science fiction authors like Bruce Sterling and Neal Stephenson aren’t really that many years away. As our society adapts to technological change, we’re starting to see whole new attempts to create “virtual countries” that purposely shun our existing societal structure by embracing the Internet and using it as its own foundation. Over the past few years, I’ve seen a couple different “online countries” pop up. One such site [country] is Waveland.

Allura Ellington has an intriguing site with some good writing. The most interesting thing for me during my visit was the botton navigation UI. She has set it up to randomly generate a different set of navigation links every time you use her reload button or every time you visit. It’s a bit unconventional but it works surprisingly well. Sometimes you just have to break the rules.

Derek Sisson: Social Entrepreneurs and the Quality Web Experience

Posted by Cameron Barrett at April 19, 2000 06:21 PM

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