Mozilla and Firefox 5

Mozilla released Firefox 5 earlier this week, just three months after rolling out Firefox 4 and a month after it released version 5 in beta.

Version 5 has "more than 1,000 improvements," which include the "Do Not Track" privacy feature and support for the CSS Animations standard, among other things.

In its rush to make the Web better, however, Mozilla is taking criticism for not making it especially clear to users that it would stop issuing vulnerability patches for Firefox 4.

That has given rise to concerns that users who delay updating for various reasons may not realize they'll lack protection against the latest malware.

"Firefox 5 is the security update for Firefox 4, and we do not plan to release a Firefox 4.0.2," Johnathan Nightingale, the Mozilla Foundation's director of Firefox engineering, told TechNewsWorld.

Should Mozilla have more forcefully notified Firefox 4 users that they have to upgrade to version 5? Should it include automatic updates instead of just sending users a pop-up window reminding them to update their browsers?

LulzSec's Latest Lark Targets Ariz. Cops

Hacker community LulzSec has revealed it's broken into the Arizona law enforcement agency's servers and released hundreds of sensitive documents on the Internet.

"We are targeting AZDPS [the Arizona Department of Public Safety] specifically because we are against SB1070 and the racial profiling anti-immigrant police state that is Arizona," LulzSec stated.

The highly controversial Arizona Senate Bill 1070 targets illegal immigrants and has drawn protests both within Arizona and outside of the state.

Arizona and the federal government are fighting a legal battle over the bill.

The documents LulzSec released on the Internet include the names and contact information of seven ADPS officials. Three of these have also had their home addresses and phone numbers released, and information about the wife of one of the three was also displayed on the Web.

Other sensitive documents released included some on counter surveillance as well as intelligence on Mexican gangs and on drug trafficking.

Arizona officials did not respond to requests for comment by press time.

The Hackers Parade Marches On

Many more verses have been added to the ballad of LulzSec lately. The hacker group has partnered with Anonymous for an agenda of world cyberchaos, vowed revenge on other hackers who disrupted an online gaming network -- this is after Lulz itself shot down a couple of other gaming networks -- and flipped off authorities who claimed to have caught one of their members.

Its attacks do tend to illustrate the many weaknesses in the online security systems we trust with protecting our data, but the group continues to insist it does it all for laughs -- the lulz, as it were.

First, LulzSec dispelled reports that it was engaged in a hacker civil war of sorts with Anonymous, a we-are-not-a-group group of cyberactivists and general pranksters. In fact, the two groups demonstrated a small measure of solidarity to declare war on the world, or at least the world's governments.

They jointly encouraged hackers around the world, regardless of nationality or affiliation, to start chipping away at government servers and other computer systems. They called on hackers to expose data, deface sites, shut down access, whatever it takes -- just grab whatever cybernetic banana peels you can get your hands on and start throwing them under the feet of any official state regime that's convenient. The goal seems to be general leakage and mayhem.

The whole operation smells a little like Wikileaks, last year's hacktivist operation of the moment. But Wikileaks at least appears to follow concepts like regimens and controls. It encourages its supporters to send data to a central source and then trust that the powers that be at Wikileaks will do the right thing with it -- "right" being a debatable term, of course.

LulzSec and Anonymous, on the other hand, seem to be leaning more toward online anarchy, encouraging everyone to act out on their own.

But watch where you point your guns, hackers. As far as LulzSec is concerned, it's open season on government systems, but woe to any and all who target online gaming networks. Like so many other sites recently, the Sega Pass online network fell victim to a hack attack, bleeding user names and passwords all over the place. All eyes fell on LulzSec, but this time the group denied involvement.

A Field Guide to the Delicious and the Deadly

When I was a kid, I spent quite a bit of time rambling around the local woods in the Pacific Northwest, and if you spend much time outdoors, you're bound to stumble upon wild berries. Some of the berries you'll find are bright, shiny, and altogether appealing ... but also potentially poisonous. We usually had no idea, and since our parents warned us of consequences, including immediate or slow and painful death, we generally avoided most all berries.

Of course, we knew huckleberries on sight, and would always eat those. Occasionally we'd snag some blackberries along a river while fishing, but other berries that were rumored to be edible, well, we just avoided them anyway. Until one day, I realized, I pretty much assume every berry I see while out and about is poisonous.

I'm not sure this is a healthy way of viewing the world, but it certainly is safe. So when I found the app Wild Berries & Herbs HD, I snapped it up, despite the $8.99 price tag.