In the mid-1990s the browser was used by more than 90% of people online.Its market share has since slipped to just 0.6% as other browsers such as Microsoft’ Internet Explorer (IE) and Firefox have eroded its user base.

The company recommends that users upgrade their browser to either Firefox or Flock, which are both built on the same underlying technologies as Navigator.

Netscape was created by Marc Andreessen who as a student had co-authored Mosaic, the first popular web browser.His company Netscape Communications Corporation released the first version in 1994.

Although this lead to legal wrangles over anti-competitive behaviour, IE now dominates the browser landscape with an 80% market share.

For the past week Netscape users have been shown a message alerting them to the end of support for the browser.

“Given AOL’s current business focus, support for Netscape browsers will be discontinued as of March 1st, 2008,” the message reads.

The open source browser’s development is coordinated by the Mozilla foundation, set up by Netscape staff made redundant in 2003.

It has had more than 500 million downloads worldwide and in countries such as Finland it is the most popular browser.

The attacker used a web page designed to deal with IT help desk queries to access the information.

Names and Social Security numbers of 22,396 individuals who were employees and students at the university during 2004 were accessed during the attack.

IT staff at the university discovered the breach on 4 May, following unusual activity the previous day. The attack was traced to two IP addresses in China and Australia.

“University of Missouri technicians identified a large series of errors caused by faulty queries to an application and an associated database,” said a university statement.

“These errors were first assumed to be caused by a problem with a system used to track computer help desk repair calls using the same database.”

Technicians disabled the account being used to access the database and the vulnerable web application is no longer available online.

University officials said that they are working closely with law enforcement officials and the FBI to investigate the event.

“The University of Missouri takes this breach very seriously and is working to alert the individuals whose information was improperly accessed, including instructions about how they may monitor their credit reports for suspicious activity,” said the statement.

“The university will continue to work diligently to secure confidential data held in its computer systems.” ]]> http://www.imtushar.com/tech/university-of-missouri-hacked/feed/ http://www.imtushar.com/news/iim-ahmedabad-defers-admissions-indefinitely http://www.imtushar.com/news/iim-ahmedabad-defers-admissions-indefinitely#comments Fri, 20 Apr 2007 16:15:51 +0000 Tushar News internet wtf http://www.imtushar.com/news/iim-ahmedabad-defers-admissions-indefinitely Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad today announced that the release of admission list has been postponed till further order. This follows a directive from the Human Resource Development Minister that the IIM should not release the list as per its decision. The IIM had decided to release the list on April 21. Earlier, the list was to be announced on April 14.

However, the IIM was asked not to release the list. The six IIM in the country on April 12 decided to go ahead with the admissions despite the Central Government order to halt the process.

We have taken the decision unanimously in the interest of students”, Director of IIM Ahmedabad Bakul Dholakia had said. He had said that all the six IIMs would release the list as per the normal quota. Admissions to the seats which are to be increased to accommodate the OBC students would be kept in abeyance. They would be filled after the order of the Central Government or the Supreme Court, he said. But the admission process would be completed by June 30.

To a question whether this act would tantamount to taking Human Resource Ministry head on, Dr. Dholakia said that it would have been better if the ministry had consulted the directors before issuing halt orders. He said that there are 81 institutions in the country offering admissions on CAT score and we cannot leave students in an indecisive state for long. “We will cross the bridge when we reach there”, he said when asked what recourse the IIMs would take if the ministry took a tough stance on the admission issue. Though he did not elaborate much and said that it was a matter of interpretation. Interestingly, Dholakia who had taken this stand avoided all media queries about the announcement. He did not respond to any call. His office said he was not available.

The PRO of the IIM said that the decision had been put on the website of the IIM. Following is the message posted on the website. In pursuance to advice of the Ministry of Human Resource Development, Government of India communicated vide letter number 14-40/2007-TS.II dated 5th April 2007 subsequently reiterated and confirmed vide letter number 14-40/2007-TS.II dated 19th April 2007, and in view of the fact that the implementation of Central Educational Institutions (Reservation in Admission) Act, 2006 is subjudice in the Hon’ble Supreme Court of India (Writ Petition (Civil) No. 265 of 2006), Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad regrets to announce that the offer of admission to successful candidates for PGP 2007-09 batch will be made only after the underlying issue is resolved. Short-listed candidates, who participated in the second stage of admission process, are advised to visit this web-site periodically.

It will be the endeavor of Indian Institute of Management Ahmedabad to announce any major development related to admission status through appropriate communication channels as and when required.

The claim escalates a dispute between Google and Viacom, which has complained that YouTube users are posting video clips of Viacom shows without permission. YouTube last month agreed to remove more than 100,000 clips after the companies failed to reach an agreement on compensation for the use of the shows.

`After a great deal of unproductive negotiation and remedial efforts by ourselves and other copyright holders, YouTube continues in its unlawful business model,'’ Viacom said in the statement. Therefore, we must turn to the courts.'’

Viacom’s claim says almost 160,000 unauthorized snippets of Viacom shows have been viewed more than 1.5 billion times on YouTube. Viacom also owns Paramount Pictures movie studios and the Nickelodeon cable network.

Google spokesman Ricardo Reyes didn’t immediately return an e-mail or phone call placed before normal business hours.

Shares of Google fell $4.55, or 1 percent, to $450.20 at 9:32 a.m. New York time in Nasdaq Stock Market trading. They had fallen 1.2 percent this year before today. Viacom’s Class B shares fell 44 cents to $39.13.

The suit was filed less than a week after Google Chief Executive Officer Eric Schmidt said media companies will have no choice but to put their TV shows and movies on video sites such as YouTube.

The growth of YouTube, the growth of online, is so fundamental that these companies are going to be forced to work with and in the Internet and a film distributor run by billionaire Mark Cuban both went to court to force Google to identify users who posted TV shows and films without permission on both YouTube and Google Video.

According to AMD, the $250,000 prize is to be the largest prize in existence for the field and is expected to attract design teams from around the world. In December, AMD awarded $20,000 prizes to Latin American students in an effort to improve rural computing.

As part of AMD’s 50×15 Initiative – a program launched in 2004 to foster new technologies in the service of connecting 50 percent of the world’s population to the Internet by 2015 – the open architecture award will by managed and judged by the Open Architecture Network, a new open source online gathering place, that Sinclair and Sun Microsystems announced yesterday at TED.

Dan Shine, director of AMD’s 50×15 initiative, says that the prize will also help spur on more creative designs and approaches to architecture that transcend traditional solutions developments currently underway.

“For far too long many great award-winning designs have gone undeveloped,” said Sinclair in a statement released Friday.

“Through the Open Architecture Network we unveiled yesterday and the Open Architecture Prize we are announcing today, we are not only challenging the creative world to design innovative structures, we are going one step further and implementing the winning solution to positively affect thousands of lives.”

The Technology, Entertainment, Design Conference continues through Saturday in Monterey with scheduled talks from They Might Be Giants, Thomas Dolby, and Richard Branson.