http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/science/nature/2138014.stm ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- BBCi NEWS SPORT WEATHER WORLD A-Z * SEARCH * * * * * SERVICE INDEX [ ] Go [o] [o] * [o] [o] [o] * [o] [o] * * * * BBC News World Edition * [o] * --------------------------------------------- * [o] * [o] * You are in: Science/Nature [o] * Friday, 19 July, 2002, 10:52 GMT 11:52 UK See also: News Front * Yahoo admits mangling e-mail [999999] Page Yahoo logo, Yahoo 11 Jul 02 | Business [blue_map_worl] If you have a Yahoo.com e-mail account and Yahoo profit spurs Africa * have wondered why some messages contain words analyst concern Americas * such as "medireview" and "reviewuate", then 10 Jul 02 | Business Asia-Pacific * wonder no longer. Yahoo breaks its losing Europe * streak Middle East * Yahoo has admitted that it has been changing 23 May 02 | Business South Asia * some of the words inside attachments Yahoo shuts European UK * accompanying messages sent to users of its auction sites Business * web-based e-mail system. 03 Jan 01 | Americas Entertainment * Yahoo bans Nazi sales Science/ * The company said it had taken the action to 06 Feb 01 | Science/ Nature prevent the spread of viruses. Nature Technology * When sending is spying Health * However, critics have said that the filtering 28 Jan 02 | Science/ ------------- system is too crude and is having unforeseen Nature Talking Point * effects. E-mail virus crashes the ------------- party Country * Foolish filter Internet links: Profiles [999999] In Depth * Some users of the Yahoo.com mail service are Yahoo ------------- complaining that the changed words are Yahoo mail Programmes * scrambling the sense of academic papers and ------------- business documents. The BBC is not * responsible for the BBC Sport Yahoo's filtering system was intended to stop content of external * the spread of viruses that lurk inside the internet sites BBC Weather computer code that defines the layout and Top Science/Nature * appearance of a webpage. stories now: * * [o] * * [999999] SERVICES * * This code, called HyperText Markup Language Date for first * * Daily * * (HTML), can be made more interactive, Australians E-mail animated and lively using another language Fifth closest star * * News * * called Javascript. discovered Ticker Mona Lisa smile secrets * * Mobile/ * * Yahoo word changes revealed PDAs The gene that maketh * ------------- * Eval to review man? * * [o] * * Mocha to espresso Gravity wave detector * * Text * * Expression to all set Only statement Robots get cheeky * * Feedback * * Javascript to The big and the bizarre * * Help * * java-script Botox 'may cause new * * [o] * * Jscript to j-script wrinkles' * Vbscript to vb-script [999999] * * [o] * * Livescript to Links to more Science/ EDITIONS * * live-script Nature stories are at * * Change * * the foot of the page. to UK When web browsers encounter a chunk of [999999] * * * [o] * * [o] Javascript, they automatically try to do what * the code demands. The code is behind such things as visitor counters and can change the appearance of buttons and bars on a page when a mouse moves over them. Unfortunately, some computer virus writers also use Javascript to set off malicious programs that, among other things, can kidnap personal information such as passwords or credit card numbers. To prevent this happening Yahoo has been scanning HTML attachments on e-mail messages sent to Yahoo.com users looking for common commands that can be subverted. The practice has been going on since at least March 2001. Scrambled words Many people have found that Yahoo's filtering system is too crude and is scrambling innocent words. Unfortunately, the filter does not respect the boundaries of words. This means that when banned text appears inside another word, it gets converted too. This has led to the appearance of strange words such as "medireview" instead of "medieval" and "reviewuate" instead of "evaluate". The filtering has scrambled e-mail addresses and led to puzzling changes in academic papers. Search engine Google lists over 600 sites using "medireview". One article in the online edition of the Hindu newspaper even talks about the "medireview" Mughal emperors of India seemingly unaware that the word has no proper meaning. Yahoo has yet to say whether it plans to stop checking and changing attachments. 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