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Time:
09:51 EST/14:51 GMT | News Source:
News.com |
Posted By: Jonathan Tigner |
A day after launching Netscape 8 and touting the browser's security features, Netscape has released an update to fix several serious security flaws.
The original Netscape 8, released early Thursday, is based on version 1.0.3 of the open-source Firefox browser. Netscape thought the new browser was immune to security vulnerabilities in the Firefox software that were fixed last week in Firefox 1.0.4. It turns out Netscape 8 is vulnerable.
"We had been misinformed by an external security vendor that the Firefox security issues did not affect us," Netscape spokesman Andrew Weinstein said Friday. "Within hours of discovering that the vendor was not accurate, we had addressed those issues and posted an updated version of the browser."
Late on Thursday, the software maker posted Netscape version 8.0.1, which includes fixes for the problems. It plans to push an update out to people who installed the original Netscape 8. However, the company is still working on its update mechanism, so in the meantime people have to go to the Netscape.com Web site to get the patched browser, Weinstein said.
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#1 By
32132 (206.116.136.250)
at
5/23/2005 12:17:59 AM
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"Ben Goodger, lead engineer for Firefox, on Thursday posted an exploit on his blog to demonstrate that Netscape 8 is vulnerable."
"At the same time, he pitched Firefox as a more secure Web browser. "
That'll teach those morons at Netscape to rely on a 2 week old version of Firefox as being secure!!!
Remember the Firefox rule: Download the daily builds every day or you will get 0wned.
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#2 By
37 (67.37.29.142)
at
5/23/2005 11:27:35 AM
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These are all lies. Everyone OSS zealot said Firefox is SECURE.
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#3 By
32132 (206.116.136.250)
at
5/23/2005 11:50:07 AM
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http://www.theinquirer.net/?article=23427
And perhaps it's just me, but I see some irony in Ben Goodger complaining about the insecurity of the initial Netscape 8.0, which was in turn caused by the insecurity of the Mozilla Foundation's own Firefox 1.03 code. As some users put it in Goodger's own blog: "I think that it was bad form to go after Netscape that way just to make yourself look better. So when did you decide to become Microsoft?. And why (even if it is harmless) would you post an exploit for a flaw that may still affect some firefox users? Just to prove that Netscape sucks?. I have been using Firefox since version 0.5.x and have loved every minute of it, but if you are going to resort to Microsoft's browser bashing tactics and posting exploits just to make Firefox look better then I will move on to something else".
"So when did you decide to become Microsoft?. "
I think thats a cheap shot. As far as I know Microsoft has never published exploit code could be used against its own customers just because they are a point release behind.
Forefox users: Run away. This is going to get ugly if the lead engineer is going to post exploit code that will allow hackers to attack his own product!!!
This post was edited by NotParker on Monday, May 23, 2005 at 11:53.
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#4 By
23275 (68.17.42.38)
at
5/24/2005 2:14:59 AM
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As said before...never anything but praise for the FF devs...amazing, frankly.
My perspective and that of many others took offense to the irresponsible way in which FF/Moz was held out as being inherently more secure than even the most recent versions of IE on XP - it begged then and certainly does now, how could that possibly be true?
To the smallest extent, one might understand how the press was so eager for "anything other than Microsoft" - for the sake of competition, I suppose.
I questioned their objectivity and in some cases, their sincerity relative to any observable and measureable characteristics that proved FF/Moz inherently more secure - repeats of FF doesn't use COM Clients [which is BS - various RMI are used, just not ActiveX, natively], etc...
It appeared that many simply "wanted" that to be so.
It was enough to make even the most noob dev gack.
So now what?...it [FF] all spirals down so quickly and after so little real scrutiny - as Microsoft's platform wide security gains ground that will be very tough for those writing exploits to counter. FF/Moz ended up doing to themselves what Microsoft could never do - because it never would.
As if to suggest that a culture like Microsoft's doesn't compete with itself - while many argue about "bloat" and at the same time suggest that Microsoft doesn't compete....I can't handle the contradictio...I mean....what accounts for all the code that makes up the "bloat" in the first place - assuming it could be characterized that way - vice new code addressing new features tied to customer desires....
The contraditions are nearly endless and sad. Perhaps the most vexing part is how those so strenuously advocating "Open" Source, are themselves so closed minded and narrow in their thinking.
A more balanced approach from FF would have stressed how new it was - how its development was young and deserving of use and support, but certainly a work that if sustained, might well have provided a lasting alternative. I used a phrase encouraging the "Driving of one's own car..." - amazing how both FF and NS have done the complete reverse of that and once again, beaten themselves. One "still" must give all credit to FF's devs...so deserved. It doesn't deserve to end so foolishly, but I suspect it is indeed all but over. They and NS really do need to take a one day racing lesson and drive their own cars.
This post was edited by lketchum on Tuesday, May 24, 2005 at 02:18.
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#5 By
23275 (68.17.42.38)
at
5/26/2005 1:50:29 AM
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#6 There are connections here...that are difficult to avoid...between social economical systems and the products, including software, manifest from them... - it is where the hard sciences collide with soft sciences and threads like this get spawned... albeit way down stream...
OSS cannot be about purity and at the same time demand to define social economical systems dependent upon rights to property. This is particularly so given the connections between individual freedoms and one's ability to acquire and dispose of property. It's a dichotomy that is not being well served.
Many holding degrees in journalism, or those that skipped the hard science courses seem to want it both ways... it isn't about choice, either - it may well be argued that choices themselves result in both legal and benevolent monopolies. It is when choices are constrained by consequence that we expect external forces to intervene - governments and their courts for example - hoping <foolishly> that a person with a degree in history can grasp the <in these cases> the simultaneous complexities inherent to technology and property.
""The wisest jurist I ever met was last week - he refused to depose me as an expert witness, because he did not know what to ask... - instead, he and the court asked for an understanding to be delivered - my respect for each soared beyond any ability to express it."" <sorry for the diversion>
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#6 By
23275 (68.17.42.38)
at
5/26/2005 1:51:04 AM
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It then becomes an issue of definition, or one should say, accepted definition. It would be one thing if the definitions supplied in the press offered real choices, but they don't. Increasingly, they offer one choice - or any choice consistent with their expressed ideology. It would be equally well and good if the reporting were restricted to describing choices...but to define choices in the context that there is only one choice <in so many cases, any choice which is anti-Microsoft; anti-United States; anti-Bush; anti-Christian; anti-Solider; anti-War; anti-life; anti-standards, consequences, responsibility, property, marriage, fathers, flags, nations, churches, grade point scales....> is held out as fundamentally good and without flaw.
It's even okay to do that - so long as it is presented as an opinion and not as fact - IE uses a COM Client that may be unsecured in some configurations <ironically, subject to real choices> therefore it is entirely unsecured - so use brand FF, which does not support one of many types of COM Clients needed for Remote Method Invocations... and is therefore entirely secure.
Against what? COM? [may I say as loudly as one can type, "Bovine Scatology!"]
Simply, OSS cannot have it both ways - neither can FF and that is why there is this present business and once again, they beat themselves. The world tried to have it both ways...and it drove small cars made of pressed cardboard and the women didn't shave their legs. BTW, a monopoly that had declared itself legal, imposed that using the same thought processes now tanking FF and best exemplified in most media. One last point...such forms of thinking [property has no value and may not be owned by any person, or persons], are most often held out by people whom have always had an abundance of property, or by people whom benefit from having no responsibility to produce property in sufficient quantities to care for even themselves - many a thirty-some-things still living off of Mom and Dad come to mind...
All that said, the strong owe the less strong one thing: to husband them to adulthood and preserve them from a state of perpetual childhood - that applies to each parent, each business owner and each leader, irrespective of station. "Devs at FF, please don't stop..dig in..get mad dog mean...and just do it...for yourselves and just let the work speak for you..."
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#7 By
23275 (68.17.42.38)
at
5/26/2005 12:16:25 PM
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#9, #10, I understand OSS very well - even helped write a patent for work done that runs well on several *nix distros.
My points about collision and OSS as represented in the media, I assert are entirely valid...I have not read one such media piece that does not strongly allude that OSS is free and that the Linuces are too. Whether its just one line, that one line - to the effect of, "...like Linux, which is free..." Nonsense.
Again - they cannot have it both ways and hold that out as being factual, free of flaws and fundamentally good - while all other software is fundamentally bad.
OSS would do far better is there were are clear separation - a demarcation line drawn between reality and philosophy.
"Prudentia" or the practical application of intelligence - prudence. This is what is needed - desperately.
The combination of a media that has a clear line of thinking, and those within the OSS community on the same end of the dichotomy have done more harm to OSS than any other influence. That end has driven off more CIO's/CTO's than any other element short of a real ROI analysis. Against that end of the issue there are products like RH AS - which is clearly not OSS at all, but a very commercial [and good, I might add] *nix distro based upon Linux.
In such a case [like those I face each day], one asks, "is it better than my alternatives...?"
Against testing and the very real issues of ROI and TCO, I at least, have said, not only "no" but "I'd have to be nuts to use this right now - no matter how curious I might be."
Despite that, I do have one [used to be more] customer that is so bolted to RH, because of their developers' familiarity with the Unices [they are from the balkans and studied/learned under it], that they persist in using RH/*nix despite full knowledge that their logic would be executed far more quickly and profitably on W2K3 and MS SQL - most especially under x64.
The others that used Darwin/Debian have long moved to W2K3 and .NET dev tools.
There is a real irony here...the very people and media that sought so hard to define commercial software and all that is behind it in one very negative light...have only succeeded in marginalizing themselves so badly that no one takes them seriously. That caught up with FF in this case - as it seems to end up doing for all OSS projects. Deserved or not, that's what is happening and these people are feeding on themselves. BTW...the mantra is no different...I heard it in SO. CAL in the late 60's and early 70's - only then the target was IBM and RAND - funny, the same monolithic core that was dumped then, is essentially the same being debated now.
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