“The battle between Microsoft and America Online over access to
the latter’s instant messaging system took a new turn Thursday,
after an independent intrusion-detection and security company
confirmed Microsoft accusations of a bug in AOL’s code.
Network ICE has uncovered a buffer overflow bug within the
latest coding of AOL Instant Messaging servers that would enable
the systems to identify and block Microsoft users. Network ICE
develops intrusion-detection applications to identify hacking
attempts, including buffer overflow attacks.”
“The bug does not attack Microsoft clients attempting to gain
access to AOL Instant Messaging servers, but instead affects AOL
clients. When an AOL client logs onto an Instant Messaging server,
the client will actually send back too much information — like a
buffer overflow exploit — therefore identifying Microsoft
Messaging clients that do not send back this information
excess.”