A few hours ago I was unable to open any threads here, with an error message that looked to me like it was probably in a Java link somewhare in mudcats innsrds (style sheet? or page header?). At least one other person had complained about saomething similar at that time. That was corrected by the time I came back about an hour later.

"Strange symbols" that replace ones normally known are most commonly because the font you're using on your own computer doesn't recognize the individual characters. This could be because the psrticulsr font you're using simply doesn't contain the character, or because your browser is set to an unsuitable encoding (IE calls it a language setting).

The font you use chooses how to represent "unknown" characters by printing any glyph it chooses for defaults of that kind. Most just use a blank rectangle, but some use a rather exotic little picture (glyph) for unrecognized chars.

There is at least one recently discovered malware type that for a few days was "findable" only by checking for an unusal font it downloads to infected machines; but so far it's reported as only attacking military/defense sites, and very large financial business sites. Although it's been reported as not being "in the wiild" among individual users, it's possible it might have escaped.

Norton has sent me a notice that they can now detect and remove it, and probably have scanned my machines with the fix already today. Yesterday Microsoft reported that they have a permanent patch for it (and for an IE/Java vulnerability), scheduled to be in an out of sequence distribution on Friday (today).

It would seem to be a low probability thing, but it is possible that the problem is with individual machines visiting here rather than with the 'cat. If it's on the site here, I'm sure it will be fixed quite soon; but I'm not seeing anything unusual here at this time. If your AV doesn't scan (frequently) automatically, ir might be a good idea to update and run one as soon as convenient, just for reassurance(?).

John