NETSCAPE RUSHES TO EXTERMINATE BUGS.Byline: Lee Gomes Knight-Ridder Tribune News Wire An outbreak of bugs in a supposedly highly secure feature of Netscape Communications Corp.'s Internet software is forcing the Mountain View, Calif., company to scramble and issue a new version of its flagship Navigator program The Navigator Program is a long term NASA project charged with over-seeing all missions related to the detection and characterization of Earth-like planets. It also seeks to further understand how galaxies, stars and planets form. , even though the current one is just four weeks old. By taking advantage of various loopholes in Netscape's JavaScript control language, computer specialists studying the product have found ways in which a World Wide Web page could, if so designed, surreptitiously sur·rep·ti·tious adj. 1. Obtained, done, or made by clandestine or stealthy means. 2. Acting with or marked by stealth. See Synonyms at secret. discover what files exist on an individual user's hard drive. A separate bug allows a Web page to force a user's machine to send an e-mail to another designated computer. Such a message would, at the very least, contain the user's e-mail address See Internet address. e-mail address - electronic mail address . Again, this major violation of Internet privacy Internet privacy consists of privacy over the media of the Internet: the ability to control what information one reveals about oneself over the Internet, and to control who can access that information. would occur unknown to the user. The security flaws involve Netscape's JavaScript, designed as an easy-to-use method for controlling events on Web pages. JavaScript is entirely separate from Sun Microsystems Sun Microsystems, Inc. (NASDAQ: JAVA[3]) is an American vendor of computers, computer components, computer software, and information-technology services, founded on 24 February 1982. Java programming language. JavaScript was called LiveScript until fall, when in an effort to capitalize on Cap´i`tal`ize on` v. t. 1. To turn (an opportunity) to one's advantage; to take advantage of (a situation); to profit from; as, to capitalize on an opponent's mistakes s>. the popularity of Java, Netscape changed LiveScript's name and made it possible for it to interact with Java programs. The revelations are certainly embarrassing to Netscape. Tuesday, the firm released a new group of high-end products, including database software, to compete with Microsoft Corp. offerings at Fortune 1,000 companies, where security is a key concern. Modern software programs are sufficiently large In mathematics, the phrase sufficiently large is used in contexts such as:
Another concern: Is Netscape, in its rush to stay ahead of Microsoft on the Internet, releasing software before it is fully tested? "If I were a business person, I'd say that you should not run these programs just yet," said Chris King, an Internet security consultant. "If a brokerage firm or bank saw some of these things, they would pull the plug." |
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