Information Research Weblog

Attention was drawn, a little while ago, to the fact that Firefox was not as immune to security problems as claimed. Well, Version 1.0.1 has now been issued (not yet in all languages—so English English is not yet available). This version "fixes a few security holes and some other bugs", particularly the security problem relating to Internationalized Domain Names:

The IDN vulnerability allowed an attacker to create a fake Web site on a non-Microsoft browser in order to pull off a phishing scam. A spoofed link would seem to be a legitimate URL in the address bar of affected browsers. But instead of taking the victim to the trusted site, the link would lead to a phony Web site with a domain rendered as the same address under the IDN process. (ZDNetstory)

Mention of languages reminds me—is there any way at all of getting rid of English (US) in Microsoft Word? It causes enormous problems for a journal editor because people use the package without changing the language setting and, even when the default is set to English (UK) it always returns to English (US) as the default when you re-launch.