The worst security site ever!

The UK has some lovely sites. Look at this one, for example. Look at the boxy layout! Look at the, er, sickening shade of green! Okay, that's not such a good example. And unfortunately, following on from that trend we have the latest addition to the security front - ITSafe, courtesy of a Government that really should have allocated a budget totalling more than three pounds fifty.

You know it's going to be bad when the logo for the site is a picture of a safe with "IT" written on it. Bet some high flying ad guy spent weeks on that one!

Aside from the colour scheme that would make Elton John blush and the awful blobby button feel of it all is a slightly more alarming fact -

ITS RUBBISH!

I held fire for a few days to see if its initial screw ups were just teething problems, but sad to say, this horse needs leading to water and then shooting. With a big tank thing.

Aside from the fact that, previously, searching for such complex phrases as "security" turned up results such as "clip art" (always good on a security site!), and signing up for their "critical alerts" didn't actually alert you to say you HAD signed up, there was a little bit of potential for this site. However, seeing as their immediate response to the search problem was to give the user this response instead:

Forbidden
You don't have permission to access /cgi-bin/search.cgi.htm on this server.
Additionally, a 403 Forbidden error was encountered while trying to use an ErrorDocument to handle the request.

(great coding guys!) - didn't exactly fill me with the joys of Spring. But their Glossary really made me howl:

Adware

Adware is software which displays adverts while it is being used. Adware is generally safe, and does not affect your computer in a bad way. This should not be confused with spyware, which is generally bad.

And another corker -

Spyware

A program that runs on your computer and records what you do. These programs range from the relatively harmless, such as programs that monitor how often you visit a specific site, to those that track everything you do on your computer and send the results to someone else, who can then use this information for whatever they want.

Sorry guys, I think your definitions may be about, oh, six-hundred years out of date. The total lack of understanding the very-real, infuriating and distressing elements that make up Spy/Adware is a wonder to behold. The amzing thing is, they say "Nothing to worry about!" for the above, then throw them under the umbrella of Malware, stating "they are included in the whole family of nasty programs that include viruses, trojans, worms and spyware". Great way to muddy your awful definitions still further!

The Glossary is hilarious reading, and full of contradictory information - however, far more serious is their ability to spot "critical" alerts. Which, on reflection for a critical alert website, isn't the best situation to be in. The site has been live since the 23rd of February 2005....however:

Whoops! Oh well, maybe the Latest Information section will be better:



Yay! They're telling Firefox users to update their browser, even though everyone using it would already have known anyway! The glories of automatic updates and popular press, eh?

Sorry guys (you knew this was coming, didn't you?...) but the site sucks. In fact, it sucks and blows at the same time which is quite a feat for a page of (badly coded) ones and zeros - click this link, which should take you to a "Yay! Your page validates" page. Unfortunately, it doesn't. However, it does give good advice to the tea-boy who made the site for future reference. What a pity they had to stick that very gaffe slap-bang in the middle of their links page! Important safety tip - never say your site is compliant when it isn't. Or people like me (whose site is hopelessly non-compliant) will whinge forever and you'll never hear the end of it.

And what of the security alerts? Funny that in the same time it took this site to paste something about Firefox updates and nothing else, all the other security sites were seemingly pulling mysterious alerts out of the ether almost every single day:

Secunia
Spywarewarrior
Security News Portal
Astalavista
Spywarewarrior (again)
Zone-H

Nah...they're probably just making it all up. Or using Voodoo chants, or getting this info drip-fed from the Seventh Level of Hell itself. Or - just maybe - the ITSafe site is actually yet another rubbish attempt by someone in Government to look cool, by setting up a security site and then not knowing what to do with it. I'll be emailing them with my suggestions on how to improve the site and when I'm done typing my missive (sometime in 2048), I'll be sure to let you know if I get a response back.

Until then, you may want to see exactly who is responsible for this latest online travesty.

Well, click here, because as you can see, pictures speak far, far louder than words.