If you find a class in a library that has all private/internal constructors, it is pretty clear that the author of the class is sending you the deliberate message that this class is not to be extended by you. In our previous example, it was not so clear. Read More...

“ Diet Dr. Pepper tastes more like regular Dr. Pepper.” That was a previous advertising slogan for Diet Dr. Pepper, my personal favourite source of both caffeine and phenylalanine; I’m drinking it right now as I write this. The present slogan is the brain-achingly Read More...

This is a follow-up to my 2005 post on the same subject which I believe sets a personal record for the longest time between parts of a series. (Of course, I didn't know it was a series when I started it.) Please read the previous article in this series, Read More...

I'm still learning my way around the C# codebase – heck, I'm still learning my way around the Jscript codebase and I've been working on it for nine years, not nine weeks. Here's something I stumbled across while refactoring the anonymous method binding Read More...

Here's a question about client side vs. server side scripting that I got recently: I want to get the machine name of the client the request is being made from. With ASP I can get the IP address using this code: ipaddr = Request.ServerVariables("REMOTE_ADDR") Read More...

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? *********************** Read More...

OK, we want to sketch out an authentication system which is sufficiently secure against common attacks even if all the details of the system are known to the attacker. Let's start with a simple system, take a look at what its vulnerabilities are, and Read More...