Medireview
Encyclopedia
Medireview was an erroneous correction of the word medieval in Yahoo! Mail
in 2001.
In 2001, Yahoo! introduced an email filter which automatically replaced Javascript
-related strings with alternate versions, to prevent the possibility of JavaScript viruses
in HTML email
. The filter would hyphen
ate the terms "Javascript
", "Jscript
", "Vbscript
" and "Livescript", and replaced "eval
", "mocha
" and "expression
" with the similar but not quite synonymous terms "review", "espresso" and "statement". Assumptions were involved in the writing of the filters: no attempts were made to limit these string replacements to
One unintended effect of this was that the word medieval became medireview, in the body of Yahoo! email messages. Not all email recipients recognised this as an error or may have even thought it was intentional. there are still web pages seen which use medireview instead of medieval. Among other effects were the replacement of evaluation with reviewuation, expressionist with statementist, prevalent with prreviewent and the replacement of the French
word cheval (horse) with chreview, rendering them into near-gibberish
.
Yahoo! Mail
Yahoo! Mail is a web mail service provided by Yahoo!. It was inaugurated in 1997, and, according to comScore, Yahoo! Mail was the second largest web-based email service with 273.1 million users as of November 2010....
in 2001.
In 2001, Yahoo! introduced an email filter which automatically replaced Javascript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
-related strings with alternate versions, to prevent the possibility of JavaScript viruses
Computer virus
A computer virus is a computer program that can replicate itself and spread from one computer to another. The term "virus" is also commonly but erroneously used to refer to other types of malware, including but not limited to adware and spyware programs that do not have the reproductive ability...
in HTML email
HTML e-mail
HTML email is the use of a subset of HTML to provide formatting and semantic markup capabilities in email that are not available with plain text.Most graphical email clients support HTML email, and many default to it...
. The filter would hyphen
Hyphen
The hyphen is a punctuation mark used to join words and to separate syllables of a single word. The use of hyphens is called hyphenation. The hyphen should not be confused with dashes , which are longer and have different uses, or with the minus sign which is also longer...
ate the terms "Javascript
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
", "Jscript
JScript
JScript is a scripting language based on the ECMAScript standard that is used in Microsoft's Internet Explorer.JScript is implemented as a Windows Script engine. This means that it can be "plugged in" to any application that supports Windows Script, such as Internet Explorer, Active Server Pages,...
", "Vbscript
VBScript
VBScript is an Active Scripting language developed by Microsoft that is modeled on Visual Basic. It is designed as a “lightweight” language with a fast interpreter for use in a wide variety of Microsoft environments...
" and "Livescript", and replaced "eval
Eval
In some programming languages, eval is a function which evaluates a string as though it were an expression and returns a result; in others, it executes multiple lines of code as though they had been included instead of the line including the eval...
", "mocha
JavaScript
JavaScript is a prototype-based scripting language that is dynamic, weakly typed and has first-class functions. It is a multi-paradigm language, supporting object-oriented, imperative, and functional programming styles....
" and "expression
Expression (programming)
An expression in a programming language is a combination of explicit values, constants, variables, operators, and functions that are interpreted according to the particular rules of precedence and of association for a particular programming language, which computes and then produces another value...
" with the similar but not quite synonymous terms "review", "espresso" and "statement". Assumptions were involved in the writing of the filters: no attempts were made to limit these string replacements to
script sections and attributes, or to respect word boundaries, in case this would leave some loophole open.One unintended effect of this was that the word medieval became medireview, in the body of Yahoo! email messages. Not all email recipients recognised this as an error or may have even thought it was intentional. there are still web pages seen which use medireview instead of medieval. Among other effects were the replacement of evaluation with reviewuation, expressionist with statementist, prevalent with prreviewent and the replacement of the French
French language
French is a Romance language spoken as a first language in France, the Romandy region in Switzerland, Wallonia and Brussels in Belgium, Monaco, the regions of Quebec and Acadia in Canada, and by various communities elsewhere. Second-language speakers of French are distributed throughout many parts...
word cheval (horse) with chreview, rendering them into near-gibberish
Gibberish
Gibberish is a generic term in English for talking that sounds like speech, but carries no actual meaning. This meaning has also been extended to meaningless text or gobbledygook. The common theme in gibberish statements is a lack of literal sense, which can be described as a presence of nonsense...
.
See also
- Scunthorpe problemScunthorpe ProblemThe Scunthorpe problem occurs when a spam filter or search engine blocks e-mails or search results because their text contains a string of letters that are shared with an obscene word...
, a similar problem in automated filters designed to block obscenity - YamannerYamannerThe Yamanner worm is a computer worm written in javascript that targets a vulnerability in the Yahoo! Mail service. Released on June 12, 2006, the worm spread through the Yahoo! system, infecting the systems of those who opened the e-mails and sending the user's address book to a remote...