"Microsoft published on Tuesday a patch for a major security flaw in its software's handling of the JPEG graphics format and urged customers to use a new tool to locate the many applications that are vulnerable.

"The critical flaw has to do with how Microsoft's operating systems and other software process the widely used JPEG image format and could let attackers create an image file that would run a malicious program on a victim's computer as soon as the file is viewed. Because the software giant's Internet Explorer browser is vulnerable, Windows users could fall prey to an attack just by visiting a Web site that has affected images."

Comments 9:03:49 PM    

Some commentators, notably Hiawatha Bray at the Boston Globe don't have much sympathy:

"The idea that we should be wasting our time arguing over whether it's right to have to show ID before boarding a plane is too silly to deserve further discussion. I'm not trying to be rude; I just can't take you [Todd Pinkerton] seriously, or Mr. Gilmore either."

But Gilmore raised one deep concern in his foray against the Justice department: there appears to be a secret law that is being applied by the airlines, if not the TSA. What is the law? Who made it? How can I comply if I don't know what it is? In a democracy that believes in the rule of law, this has got to be troubling.

So, when the Ashcroft Justice Department demanded that the first hearing of the Gilmore case be held in secret, and that Gilmore and his attorneys be barred from it, things got even weirder, IMHO. This was beginning to sound like a proceeding from some totalitarian regime. The good news, in my opinion, is that the Court denied the DOJ motion.

We have to take terrorism seriously, I don't think anyone denies that. But I also think that an ad hoc dismantling of freedoms and law that have worked amazingly well for 200 years is alarming and dangerous. Other Western democracies have been the targets of terrorism, and have not chosen to dismantle their citizen's rights even as they battle terrorists.

A lesson of the last decade is that when powerful people are allowed to operate without scrutiny bad things inevitably happen - Enron and Hollinger come to mind. Those of us who lived through the Nixon White House and the Iran Contra affair know that government can stray just as badly. We appear to have a secret transportation law: will secret abortion laws be next? Secret laws banning certain political parties? Gives one pause...
Comments 8:20:58 AM    

Chris Gulker's view from Silicon Valley - in words and pictures