Sponsor's Message

Paradise's email system fell flat on its face due (we're told) to unprecedented levels of spam.

If this failure really was due to circumstances beyond the control of the company, why didn't Xtra, IHUG, and the raft of other ISPs suffer a similar fate?

Could it be that Paradise was already running on the ragged edge of under-capacity in the mailserver department?

Now have your say Got something to say about today's column, or want to see what others think?  Visit The Forums While you're here, why not visit the Aardvark Hall of Shame and perhaps make your own nomination. 7

Then we heard that one of Australia's leading euthanasia proponents is relocating his website to an NZ-based server, so as to get around laws in Oz which prohibit the electronic dissemination of such information.

One has to wonder whether this tactic will really work -- especially in the light of a recent prosecution against a Kiwi kiddy-porn collector who claimed that, because his server was located off-shore, he could not be prosecuted for disseminating such material here in Godzone. He lost that case, the court taking a rather commonsense attitude that regardless of where the server was hosted, he was still the publisher of the offending material.

At least one phishing scam tried to catch out the dull and uneducated amongst us by requesting the bogus verification of login details for online banking services. I guess the phishers figured that the banks would be closed for several days so they'd get more time to use their ill-gotten passwords than might otherwise be the case.

But the most important news of the break has to be the discovery of a flaw in the image processing routines integral to all versions of MS Windows shipped since 1990.

Right now, virtually every Windows PC on the planet is vulnerable to this exploit every time it displays an image on the screen. Microsoft's patch isn't expected until at least the 10th of January -- uh-oh! Is it time to turn off the images on your browser?

Apart from all this action and excitement, things were pretty quiet around here over the break.

I really enjoyed the fact that the gales and rain were warmer (a sure sign that summer's here).

What did I get for Christmas?

Some superman undies, a small wallet for my credit cards, a bar of chocolate and a lunchbox (not too impressive huh?). How about you? Did Santa bring you a plethora of hi-tech goodies?

Tell us all and see what others have to say in The Aardvark Forums

If you feel that this is a good thing and/or you hold a "geniune affection" for yours truly -- then you are welcome to gift me some money using the buttons provided. In gifting this money you accept that no goods, service or other consideration is offered, provided, accepted or anticipated in return. Just click on the button to gift whatever you can afford. NOTE: PayPal bills in US dollars so don't accidentally gift more than what you were intending :-)

Contacting Aardvark
I'm always happy to hear from readers, whether they're delivering brickbats, bouquets or news tip-offs. If you'd like to contact me directly, please this form. If you're happy for me to republish your comments then please be sure and select For Publication.

Other media organisations seeking more information or republication rights are also invited to contact me.

Just add a couple of lines of JavaScript to your pages and you can get a free summary of Aardvark's daily commentary -- automatically updated each and every week-day.

Aardvark also makes a summary of this daily column available via XML using the RSS format. More details can be found here.

Contact me if you decide to use either of these feeds and have any problems.

Linking Policy
Want to link to this site? Check out Aardvark's Linking Policy.

Did you tell someone else about Aardvark today? If not then do it now!