DeadJournal Dept.

Those of you with LiveJournal accounts probably heard about the recent little (cough) issue they had where a piece of cross-site scripting malware started trashing people's posts and infecting folks by jumping from one friend's list to the other.

Frankly, at first, I thought it was my own damn fault. I use a custom MT script to post to LJ, and I was worried that — along with my MT installation — had gotten infected.

I don't know who to blame more: LJ, the browser makers, or the scum who concoct such vile things; for this they deserve to have their fingers yanked off and fed to the Choking Doberman. (I give the LJ admins credit for owning up to this being someone's malicious code, and not trying to spin it as the botched rollout for some goofus feature or other.)

I do know this is a perfect example of why I don't trust the Web. Not in the sense that I won't use it for anything (I mean, durr, I have a blog), but that I don't trust it — I don't assume the people on the other end know best, or even half the time know what's going on. I use LJ as an echo account for exactly this reason — it's not something I rely on for anything. At least with my own blog I have a smidge more control and can exercise that much more under-the-hood scrutinousness.

And people wonder why I hate Facebook and Twitter, too.