And in other news.... the Third Voice controversy; Dangerous new virus
And in other news.... the Third Voice controversy; Dangerous new virus
Essentially, Third Voice appears to work like a browser plug-in. If you have the plug-in installed and you log on to the Third Voice service, you can leave embedded "notes" attached to any web page. Other users of the Third Voice software then see an indication that a noted is present and read the note if they wish. While this does not physically alter the original web page, the effect is to make it seem as if this has happened. If this is still a bit unclear, a demo walks you through how it all works.
The controversy, as you might guess, comes from webmasters upset that, in effect, the content of their pages are being "modified" without their consent or control. As noted in a Wired News article, some consider this a copyright violation. To read even more about the objections to this software, check out a web site devoted to the topic: Say No to Third Voice.
Dangerous new virus/worm A New York Times article writes about the new "Worm.ExploreZip" virus/worm: "Computer researchers Thursday reported a malicious computer program that is spreading rapidly through the Internet by E-mail and destroying documents created by widely used Microsoft software programs. The attacking program shows up as an E-mail attachment (called "zipped_files.exe"). When opened, it embeds itself in the computer's software, destroying files created by common applications like Word, PowerPoint and Excel and propagating itself to the victim's E-mail correspondents. It is far more dangerous than the Melissa computer virus, which spread rapidly in March as a sort of an E-mail chain letter but was not designed to destroy files." It appears that the virus does not attack Macs, but Mac users can spread it. (Thanks Meredith Lesly of MacTIPS.)