A year or more ago, this was on the web to identify a potential security threat in Internet Explorer (but not in Firefox.)\u00c2\u00a0http:\/\/www.clipboard.googlemyway.com\/<\/a>\u00c2\u00a0 The threat was that your clipboard could be read\u00c2\u00a0when you visit a\u00c2\u00a0web site that has this line of\u00c2\u00a0Java code.<\/p>\n

I came across\u00c2\u00a0the link\u00c2\u00a0while clearing out very old emails. \u00c2\u00a0It still works but Internet Explorer does provide some protection now. I have misgivings about how far this is just window dressing. In any case try it and see.<\/p>\n

It may not seem that your clipboard represents much of a security threat, unless you are unlucky enough to visit a site with such code when you have\u00c2\u00a0recently copied your credit card\u00c2\u00a0PIN in for another purpose.<\/p>\n

However, today, just after transferring a huge number of Ms-Access records\u00c2\u00a0 to Excel and getting the “do you want to save the clipboard?” message , I realised\u00c2\u00a0that the clipboard often holds data that shouldn’t be available for general distribution. The records that might be held in the clipboard by\u00c2\u00a0a bank or a hospital could possibly harm someone. It’s not a completely trivial flaw.<\/p>\n