...and does any Londoner of sound mind give a flying....duck....what any website says about the candidates !!

This is an equal opportunity sneer !!

and you can make your own fun link:

http://www.backboris.com/misc/register.php?msg=%3CIFRAME%20SRC=http://my.telegraph.co.uk/VirtualContent/86950/20070806152444.jpg%3E%3C/IFRAME%3E

(don't worry, it's safe)

You don't even need an iframe you can directly insert an img tag or even a script tag.

Simon's joke here with an img tag is much b=more transparent

http://www.backboris.com/misc/register.php?msg=%3Cimg%20SRC=http://my.telegraph.co.uk/VirtualContent/86950/20070806152444.jpg%3E

This really isn't a trivial matter though - I mean some useless web development cretin actually got paid to make these sites and didn't think to sanitise the incoming data from the URI.

The IT industry really does make me spit blood sometimes; if architectural engineering was like software engineering we'd never have been able to get anything taller than a bungalow standing.

Web developers seem to be worse than the rest.

Yes, I am a web developer (LAMP with the 'P' being predominantly PHP) and some of the code I've seen makes me just stare in disbelief at the screen - how the hell people can sleep at night after foisting that shit on someone is beyond me. Look at PHP written by ASP "developers" and you'll want to cry.

[anonymous because slagging off the IT industry here, of all places, seems unwise]

It appears that they've removed any html being posted, it's still (at time of posting) possible to do the following though.

http://www.backboris.com/misc/register.php?msg=If%20You%20Are%20An%20Idiot

But not everywhere!

http://www.backboris.com/contribute/index.php?msg=Vote%20for%20Ken

Spotted and blocked by NoScript. It's a clever little tool to be sure.

@Ishkandar

It matters because the trick allows you to do pretty much anything you like, under the guise of being a legitimate site. See comments about drive-by malware downloads, etc.

Also, having a silly posting 'shtick' wasn't cool when amanfrommars did it either, though at least your effort is parseable.

I'd agree if they actually applied the same logic elsewhere.

From here you could change any part of the page as javascript runs with no problem. The number of team members for instance. But for now another proof of concept

http://www.backboris.com/about/index.php?mtf_msg=%3Cimg%20src=http://my.telegraph.co.uk/VirtualContent/86950/20070806152444.jpg%3E

has hacked Boris Johnson's site to include that picture of him looking gormless at the top.

Ah.

NOT