Staticfree Blog

if you are connecting to the internet via a modem click here to see if it has the the +++ATH0 bug or not. You can read more about this sillyness at this respectable site.

Why does this still work? Because people were stupid and did not provide an escape for the escape sequence '+++' which would be used on all transmitted data. This is common knowledge: if you want to make '+++' mean something special, you have to make it so normal applications can still transmit '+++' without having that special meaning activated. Ug.

SGML and HTML do this: if you want to write a '<' symbol (which normally would be interpreted as meaning a tag) you write &lt;. And to write the '&' in &lt; you write '&amp;. It's messy, but it works.