Just in case you haven't heard by now, a critical flaw in the DNS protocol used to enable much of the Internet as we know has been discovered.  Unfortunately, some independent research triggered an inadvertent chain of events that resulted in the premature release of the details. With the cat out of the bag, an exploit was quickly cobbled together and has since been released.

In response to "Putting a 'spanner' in the works" last week, reader John York wrote in and shared an anecdote in which a forgotten IBM 8088 serving as a network bridge finally gave up. "Forgotten" being the key word here, senior engineers were confused while going through the whole troubleshooting process, at least until suitably questioned by John about the kind of hardware performing the bridging. Needless to say, the downed machine was quickly located and replaced.

Elsewhere, Apple's newly launched and much-touted MobileMe service appears to have run into some snags. I'll leave you to read about some of the complaints, though I must say that losing emails is not a particularly appetizing notion to me.

I suppose David Pogue from the New York Times summed it up best when he wrote, "O.K., look: Even big companies screw up. Intel's done it. Microsoft's done it. Google's done it." Still, I can't help but question whether it is self-inflicted to an extent. After all, Apple did launch four rather complex initiatives in a single day: the iPhone 3G, its App Store, iPhone 2.0 firmware upgrade and MobileMe.

Did Apple try to bite off more than it could chew? - Paul