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UK Gov't Says "No Evidence" IE Is Less Secure
aliebrah writes "Lord Avebury tabled a parliamentary question in the UK regarding the security of Internet Explorer and whether the UK government would reconsider its use. He got an answer from the UK Home Office that's unlikely to please most Slashdot readers. The UK government contends that 'there is no evidence that moving from the latest fully patched versions of Internet Explorer to other browsers will make users more secure.'"
In UK governmental English, "to table" apparently means something like "to propose" or "to bring up for consideration", almost exactly the opposite of the U.S. meaning, which is "to withdraw from further consideration".
I guess there's some international disagreement over whether this mythical table is where you put things to be considered, or where you put things to die. Perhaps to Britons, putting things on a table is officially proposing them, whereas to Americans, if it's on the table it's inert, and if you want it proposed, you had better have it in your hand waving it in someone's face.
10 PRINT CHR$(205.5+RND(1)); : GOTO 10
The quote bears no reflection of any opinion on the security or quality of IE in general. The "user" being referred to in the quote is UK government staff, using UK government IT, and his response is wholly within that context. As is very often the case on Slashdot (and, to be fair, much of the media), the summary shifts the context slightly and then omits significant information and thus infers something other than what was communicated at the time.
Immediately after the quoted text, unmissable except by the most... Let's give the benefit of the doubt and say hurried of submitters and editors, is the following: (my emphasis added for the most hurried of Slashdot readers)