• Designing for: The Web Standards Project | And all that Malarkey: The one where Malarkey talks about the decisions that were taken during the redesign of The Web Standards Project web site. An impressive result, using design and key copy items to associate the site with serious social issues - a site designed to trigger subconscious reactions on the part of the user. Plus it looks nifty. I do find the body text too small and there are some problems with colour contrast*, however Malarky says alternate CSS will probably be added in future to address these issues.
  • iWeb, the new tag soup generator | 456 Berea Street. I'd comment, but then people would just get annoyed that I'm bashing Apple again ;) Seriously though, this is a pity and I hope it's resolved in future versions.
  • Virus watches mouse clicks | NEWS.com.au (16-03-2006). This doesn't come as any great surprise, since X/Y coordinates can be tracked; but it does disprove the claim (made by certain financial institutions) that a mouse-based login page is inherently more secure than traditional keyboard input. The reality is that a virus can pick up keystrokes and clicks, most banks are happy so long as their customers get a sense of security (and there's a disclaimer that the bank can use to avoid any problems).
  • Speaking of banks and security, the Bendigo Bank has just started advertising a security token system: Bendigo Bank e-banking. The TVC drives me nuts since they show the users firing up IE, which would be their primary security concern ;) It's an interesting move, probably made possible by the Bendigo's customer base being (apparently) loyal and willing to cough up the cash for the token generator. The entire system is still vulnerable to social engineering and so forth; plus the token generators are not exactly subtle - the bank's logo/URL is a bit of a giveaway as to what they are. The most likely attack I can think of would be a coworker installing keyloggers and nicking keyrings; so if you don't trust your coworkers the $99 generator with a pin number is a good idea.

* If you are curious to see for yourself, use Vision Australia's Colour Contrast Analyser to check the colour combinations. Since graphics are involved Firefox's colour check extension probably won't show the problem.