News briefs: Microsoft flags flawed IE patches

To continue reading, register here and become an Insider. You'll get free access to premium content from CIO, Computerworld, CSO, InfoWorld, and Network World. See more Insider content or sign in.

• Two patches released by Microsoft earlier this year for its Internet Explorer browser may cause some Web sites to improperly load. The bulletins, MS05-038 and MS05-052, removed "unsafe functionality" and change how the browser handles ActiveX controls for security reasons, Stephen Toulouse, a program manager in Microsoft's security unit, wrote last week on the Microsoft Security Center Response blog. After installing MS05-038, first published Aug. 9 on the Microsoft Download Center, Web pages containing Component Object Model (COM) objects called monikers may not work as expected. MS05-052, published Oct. 11, added an additional check for a specific interface for ActiveX controls before allowing a COM object to run in Internet Explorer. But it also blocks some Web pages containing ActiveX controls, Microsoft said. Users who are missing certain registry subkeys also may experience problems with this patch, Microsoft said. Instructions for the two possible problems with MS05-052 can be found at here and here .
• Oracle has lost its second CFO this year. The company said last week that Greg Maffei will leave later this month. "Greg has told us he's looking at a terrific professional opportunity," said Oracle CEO Larry Ellison in a written statement. Former Microsoft executive Maffei spent just four months at Oracle after joining the company in late June. He replaced Harry You, who left Oracle in March after eight months. You departed to take over as CEO of services company BearingPoint. Oracle's CFO position has become a revolving door since longtime CFO Jeff Henley vacated the office in 2004 to become Oracle's chairman. Oracle said that Co-president Safra Catz will take over CFO duties, as she did following You's departure. Oracle intends for Catz to permanently fill the job and is not conducting a search for a new CFO, a company spokeswoman said.
• The Mozilla Foundation last week released a test preview of the next version of the Firefox browser, demonstrating the upcoming release's improved pop-up blocking, enhanced navigation and added support for Web standards. Mozilla Firefox 1.5 Release Candidate 1 is available now so testers can make fixes before the final code is released, according to information on the Mozilla Web site. Firefox 1.5 should be available in full release before year-end, with one more preview to be made available as early as Nov. 11 if feedback from Release Candidate 1 is positive, according to the Mozilla Web site. New features include a better system for updating software, faster navigation using the Back and Forward tabs, and a redesigned Options/Preferences window that increases the number of category icons and moves them from the left side of the window to the top.
• Business and government officials were united last week in opposition to recent proposals to create an international Internet governing body, saying it could slow innovation and limit online choices. Proposals to establish this body and take away the administration of the Internet's top-level Domain Name System from the nonprofit Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) would open the Internet to the political whims of governments, said Rick Lane, vice president of government affairs at News Corp., a media company. "That is one of our concerns: that all of a sudden, politics that have nothing to do with ICANN start trickling into . . . how the Internet is being run," said Lane, speaking at a forum about the upcoming World Summit on the Information Society. The European Union in September called for an international governing body for the Internet and a reduced role for ICANN, created in 1998 by the U.S. Department of Commerce.

Read more about security in Network World's Security section.