Day: February 9, 2005

After legalizing unmarried sex, criminalizing pants

Boston.com: Va. bill sets fine for low-riding pants. Excellent. Glad to see that my home legislature is still taking care of the really important issues, like a citizen’s “intentionally wear[ing] and display[ing] his below-waist undergarments, intended to cover a person’s intimate parts, in a lewd or indecent manner.’”

This, of course, begs the question: what is the case law history that determines “lewd or indecent manner“ for underpants display in the Commonwealth? And how does one expose one’s below-waist undergarments in a non-lewd or indecent manner? Enquiring minds, etc.

The mote in your neighbor’s eye

Alex Barnett, erstwhile Microsoft UK online marketer, now in corporate at Redmond, is today’s designated lightning rod with Firefox is secure, FUD?:

How many times have you heard, “hey drop IE, it is full of security holes. Try Firefox, it is secure.”? I’m not saying IE hasn’t had its own problems, but Firefox has had security holes in past, has security holes today and will in the future. To say Firefox is secure is simply untrue.

There are certainly arguments to be made that Firefox is not the be-all and end-all in secure browsers, but picking on this flaw is probably not the right way to go about it. Especially given that IE never bothered to implement the standard in question. And the large numbers of vulnerabilities in everything from graphics handling to hyperlinks that were patched yesterday.

I think there’s a positive story to be told about Microsoft’s security response efforts. I also think that the company and its representatives have a long way to go before they can be credible calling another software effort insecure.