UPDATE: New Online


Updated October 17: Microsoft has released a bulletin and a patch for the Cuartango Security Hole in Internet Explorer browsers (discussed below).

Updated October 15: according to PharLap's Richard Smith in his posts on NTBugTraq mail list, MS has confirmed (and is preparing a fix for) the "Cuartango Security Hole" in Internet Explorer browsers. This hole allows a web site (or HTML-based email) to steal a file from your computer if you have scripting enabled. Microsoft's current workaround is to turn off Active Scripting until a patch is readied.

To see the NTBugTraq posts on this matter (as it's not up on the MS Security Advisor site yet), go to NTBugTraq, navigate to Archives, select October 1998, and read the threads with "Cuartango Security Hole". The latest one, "Update on the Cuartango Security Hole", has new information and points you to PharLap's innocuous test to see if your IE browser is affected.

The first news is that ZDNet's Windows Pro magazine, which I had just covered in the August 25 article nt.zdnet.com, is closing its doors after the second issue!

(Ziff Davis also killed Equip, which had been Computer Life; and Internet Business, which had operated under another name as well.)

My question is: where does that leave ZDNet's NT area, nt.zdnet.com? While still up and running at this writing, I couldn't help but notice, first and foremost, that Russ Cooper's weekly Security articles stopped on September 29. That was, to me, the most promising aspect of the new NT site.

Besides the NT News area, which was always just filtered stories from ZD's news site, ZDNN, the only other "fresh" content on the site is from users, in both the "Talk Back" sections for each article, and the threaded Dr. NT Forum (which has actually been a mainstay at ZDNet for over a year, albeit under a different name).

Many of the site's features were to be articles from the now-defunct trade magazine, so I wouldn't bet on the viability of the site. After all, the whole site's sub-title is "brought to you by Windows Pro Magazine"! My guess is that the Windows Pro guys are goners, and with them, the content.

In other news: