When you're getting close to shipping a beta for a big product, the dev team is either insanely busy tracking down last-minute issues, or deathly bored. This week was one of the insanely busy weeks! Lots of late nights. It looks like next week should...

There were a grand total of eight entries to my VBScript quiz -- I think I made it too hard! Congratulations to Steven Bone and Nicholas Allen, who both got all twelve right, with more-or-less correct explanations of what was happening here. Guys, send...

I've had a tiny handful of entries in my VBScript quiz . I know from my logs that 2600+ people have read it. Come on people, there are fabulous prizes at stake here! Go for it! I'm going to keep the contest open until Friday morning, at which point I...

I want to do a long -- potentially very long -- series of blog articles about the fundamental theoretical nature of formal computer languages, and the practical problems in producing compilers for them. To kick this off in a lighthearted way on a Friday...

My friend Kristen asked me over the weekend when I was going to stop blogging about crypto math and say something funny again. Everyone's a critic! Patience. my dear. Today, the final entry in my series on salt. Tomorrow, who knows? *****************...

Last time we were considering what happens if an attacker gets access to your server's password file. If the passwords themselves are stored in the file, then the attacker's work is done. If they're hashed and then stored, and the hash algorithm is strong...