Safari vulnerable to AutoFill security bug (again) | Browsers & Add-Ons | MacUser | Macworld

Safari vulnerable to AutoFill security bug (again) | Browsers & Add-Ons | MacUser | Macworld

You might remember that Apple’s Safari browser got hit by a nasty security bug involving its text AutoFill feature in late July. Apple squashed this bug with the Safari 5.0.1 update, but according to the researcher who discovered the AutoFill flaw in the first place, the bug is back.

According to Jeremiah Grossman, the founder of WhiteHat Security, this flaw is a slight variation on the original AutoFill flaw that allowed malicious Websites to harvest your personal information—such as your name, address, workplace, and e-mail address—without you knowing, even if you’ve never visited the site before.

The new version of this hack is less “automatic” than the initial one, according to Grossman, but a hacker just needs to perform a little social engineering to get a hapless Web user to give up their personal details.

As before, Grossman suggests that, if you use Safari, you should disable form auto-fill to avoid getting taken by this bug. To do so, select Preferences under the Safari menu, and click AutoFill in the toolbar; uncheck all three boxes.

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Google Chief Executive, Eric E. Schmidt, Interviewed On The Colbert Report

The Colbert Report	Mon - Thurs 11:30pm / 10:30c
Eric Schmidt
www.colbertnation.com
Colbert Report Full Episodes 2010 Election Fox News

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Microsoft Offers Web Embeddable PowerPoint, Excel - PCWorld

Microsoft Offers Web Embeddable PowerPoint, Excel - PCWorld

Microsoft has added new capabilities to its online Microsoft Office companion service that allow users to embed PowerPoint presentations and Excel spreadsheets on their own websites.

Launched in June, Microsoft Office Web Apps has already been used, the company claims, by 20 million people, despite some negative reviews. The service offers the ability to make quick edits to Excel, Word, OneNote and PowerPoint documents.

Since the launch, the company has received more than 25,000 suggestions for how to improve the service, according to Microsoft senior product manager Evan Lew, in a video accompanying the blog announcement of the new features.

The timing of the upgrade is fortuitous for Microsoft insofar as Oracle announced at its Open World conference this week that its cloud-based Office productivity suite, based on Open Office, is nearing release as well.

With Microsoft Office Web Apps, users will now be able to embed PowerPoint presentations and Excel worksheets, tables and charts on an external website or blog page. With Excel, as the original document is updated, the embedded version will change as well.

Improvements have been made to the user's ability to edit files online as well. Spreadsheet users can now add lines, pies and bar charts to their worksheets directly from their browser. Microsoft has also opened up the Office.com image library so users can add images to their PowerPoint presentations.

And Excel worksheets now join Word and PowerPoint documents in their ability to be easily viewed from a mobile phone.

The company is also expanding the global availability of the Office apps to seven additional countries: Australia, Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Russia and Switzerland.

In addition to adding muscle to Microsoft Office Web Apps, the company has also boosted capabilities of Windows companion online service, Windows Live.

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Google Transparency Report: Government Requests

Google Transparency Report: Government Requests

Like other technology and communications companies, we regularly receive requests from government agencies around the world to remove content from our services, or provide information about users of our services and products. This map shows the number of requests that we received in six-month blocks with certain limitations.

We’re still learning the best way to collect and present this information. We’ll continue to improve this tool and fine-tune the types of data we display.

View the interactive map on Google's site here

__________________________________________________

Canada, Mexico, France, Spain, South Korea and Japan are included in this list. I experienced this type of blocking when I lived in South Korea when I tried to look for at a North Korean site mentioned on the Rachel Maddow Show. Censorship is the first weapon that tyrants use.

John H. Armwood

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Highly polished browsing experience | The Download Blog - Download.com

Image via WikipediaHighly polished browsing experience | The Download Blog - Download.com

There are plenty of good options for browsing the Web on a Mac, but if your main concern is speed, it's tough to beat Google Chrome. This speedy browser features a sleek minimalist look, thumbnails of your top sites so you can get back to favorite destinations quickly, and plenty of useful features to keep it competitive with other Mac browser mainstays.

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Firefox Patched for 'Stability' - PCWorld

Image via WikipediaFirefox Patched for 'Stability' - PCWorld

Mozilla pushed out a patch to all versions of Firefox, including the beta Firefox 4, to repair issues that caused crashes.

Gregg Keizer

Sunday, September 19, 2010 05:00 AM PDT

Mozilla last week updated all versions of Firefox, including the beta of the upcoming Firefox 4, to fix stability problems that crashed the browser.

Artwork: Chip TaylorFirefox 3.6.10 and Firefox 3.5.13, which Mozilla launched late Wednesday, addressed what Mozilla said was "a single stability issue affecting a limited number of users."

A crash problem surfaced last week after Mozilla released Firefox 3.6.9 and Firefox 3.5.12 to patch 15 vulnerabilities . Users of all three editions -- Windows, Mac and Linux -- reported repeated crashes during browser startup after they'd updated to Firefox 3.6.9/3.5.12.

Mozilla halted updates while it investigated. The company has since restarted automatic update delivery.

Mozilla also upgraded Firefox 4's beta this week to deal with a stability bug on that preview.

"We've decided to issue a small beta update in order to fix a stability issue on Windows and some rendering and keyboard/mouse focus issues on OSX related to plug-ins," Mike Beltzner, director of Firefox, said in a message posted to the "mozilla.dev.planning" mailing list.

Like the bug in Firefox 3.6.9/3.5.12, the one in Firefox 4 Beta 5 crashed the Windows browser on or shortly after startup. Mozilla's bug- and code change-tracking Bugzilla database offered more information on the crash bug, which quickly climbed to the top of the crash report chart.

Mozilla pushed the quick fix to users as Firefox 4 Beta 6 on Tuesday.

Because Mozilla had to issue the stability patch, the company also designated Beta 7 as the new feature-frozen version, the one that locks in what will be included and drops what won't. Beta 7 is slated to ship later this month.

"What was known as 'Firefox 4 Beta 6' will now be 'Firefox 4 Beta 7,'" said Beltzner. "We're not adding a beta to our cycle, we're just issuing some fixes for stability and usability to the beta audience, and our numbering system requires that we bump the version number."

Mozilla has already ditched a pair of anticipated features from Firefox 4 to make its deadlines: Account Manager, a beefed-up password manager built into the browser to simplify Web site sign-up; and Inspector, a tool aimed at Web designers and developers who want to drill down for more information on each element in an HTML page.

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