The MS patch intended to fix a data binding flaw in IE, which enables a script to call executables on your Windows machine using the object tag, does not protect against malicious files launched from a local directory.

Andrew Orlowski discusses a report commissioned by the US military about open source and free software.

Alan Brown makes a short response to the news that ORBS is shutting down.

Kieren McCarthy's article about Muuss' death.

Provides a brief guide to the new model of this Linux PDA.

Essay by Peter Abrahams pointing out "one of the weaknesses of most search engines and the Web itself: you cannot sort by date."

Includes: MSXML may ignore IE security zone settings during a request for data from a Web site; and a VBscript problem which allows an attacker to read files on a victim's local drive, or eavesdrop on his browsing session.

The growth of the spam problem in 2002 has been exponential, writes Kevin Murphy . Companies that sell spam filtering software say currently the percentage of email that is spam could be 20%, 33%, or even up to 50%, compared to less than 10% a year ago.

Opinion article by Andrew Orlowski suggesting that Wikipedia has a long way to go before it's a stand-in for libraries and scholarly publications.

Criticisms of Wikipedia and of arguments used by its admirers in an article by Andrew Orlowski.