It grieves me that someone who pretends IT competence doesn't ken the difference between NUL and NULL.

NUL is the name of the (ASCII) character with the binary value of 0000 0000.

NULL is empty, not value, undefined. As in a NULL pointer, a pointer that has not been initialised.

A NUL is commonly used in programs (and hence the strings of characters the use) to denote the end of a string, and this would be why Internet Exploder ignores them.

While it is refreshing to see antivirus vendors under attack for poor detection, rather than, as is traditional, end users for allowing their machines to get infected - a car analogy usually helps with this - I can't help feeling that an anti-IE paragraph is required in this article.

People have been told again and again how unsafe IE is. If they continue to use it, they must take part of the responsibility when one of its myriad vulnerabilities trips them up.

<flamebait>Use a proper operating system like Linux instead of Windows</flamebait>

on which anti-virus that you use. Some are excellent, some are so-so, and some are complete rubbish (like Norton) and are almost as bad as a virus itself.

Or just don't use Windows anymore.

This only encourages the statement that we are seeing an end of black listing software, so called anti-virus. There are many new products that takes care of "anything" using white listing. Not saying that it applies to web traffic but it does prevent the computer from executing non-allowed software that these malicious pages makes IE execute.

If an operating system intended for use on the internet needs third party software to keep it secure then it is NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE.

Why the public allow Microsoft to continue to ship broken by design software is a mystery.

There will always be bugs that need fixes but Microsoft seem to go out of their way to design in holes that will eventually be exploited. Isolation is the key to security and the browser should protect, not infect, a computer.

Seems the new hotmail gives firefox the runaround during logins, until firefox complains the page fails to redirect properly.

Happening on an some email addresses not others. I'd think it was a bug, but this is Microsoft and the same thing works on Safari and IE.

The only reason that NUL is NUL is that the control codes in the ASCII code set (values 0 - 31 Decimal) is the are either 2 or 3 character labels. If the developers had allowed 4 character descriptors then NUL would have probably been NULL.

The company I work for uses Symantec Corporate Edition for virus/malware protection. Usually at least once a month I have a user complaining that his/her machine is 'slow', 'broken', or 'acting weird'. At which time, I find that it's infected with something that Symantec completely misses. Usually I can clean the machine by pulling the hard drive and examining common locations for viruses like the System32 directory, then eventually booting it and cleaning up the registry. Who knows how many infected machines are out there with AV software merrily ticking away, running system scans at designated times, the users (and many IT depts) oblivious to the infections, even proud that they're "doing what they're supposed" to do to be safe. As the sophistication of malware increases, so must the method used to protect. Using Firefox with 'Noscript' installed is a good start IMHO, but my company has adamantly refused to let users install Firefox. So it goes.

Presumably your company believes that by sticking with the market leaders - Microsoft and Symantec - they can come to no harm. But an infection a month is a very high rate - they should understand that someday it won't just be one person's workstation "acting weird" but their entire network. And that their 'stick with IE' policy will be to blame. It's your duty, AC, as perhaps the only person in your organization who actually knows about this stuff, to insist on a change of policy.

Sûnnet Beskerming needs to read vmyths.com before writing anything else. Enough said.

ecosystem (n): An ecological community together with its environment, functioning as a unit.

Stop this needless corruption of the word ecosystem.

Now where's my L'Oreal collagen biosphere cream? I'm sure I left it in one of my coat pockets...

Actually as every SQL beginner knows, the test is

IF nul IS NOT NULL

ayethengyou