Inflammable Means Flammable?

Tuesday, 16 December 2003

One of the recurring bits of shtick I perform here at Daring Fireball goes like this:

• Some jackass writes something really dumb.
• They get a lot of attention.
• I politely retort.

The problem isn’t with #1. There’s always some new jackass — or serial offender — publishing some sort of misleading / misinformed / self-aggrandizing crap. The problem is with #2 (which is an essential component in the mix — there’s no reason to argue against someone who’s being ignored), wherein publications which ought to know better give the jerks from #1 unwarranted attention.

What’s nice, though, is that sometimes #3 is unnecessary, because someone else does the retorting.

Such is the case with the recently-reported DHCP security vulnerability discovered by William Carrel, and the bizarrely gloating response to said vulnerability written by Lance Ulanoff in PC Magazine.

John C. Welch has written a perfect response. Really, I mean it: perfect.

Updates

• If you just want to know how to secure your computer from this exploit, Apple has step-by-step instructions.

• Rick Forno wrote another terrific response to Ulanoff’s gloating.