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Reserve the 418 status code

tools.ietf.org

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Re: Reserve the 418 status code

#41

Post by robotmay »

I actually use the 418 code in a simple API we use for IOT devices. I wrote a small program that runs on Raspberry Pis that checks a HTTP endpoint and turns power on and off to a room depending on whether the room is booked out. I wanted a status code on the API that could only possibly be generated on purpose, so if it receives a 418 response it knows to turn off the power; any other response, failure etc turns the power on (so we don't have a room out of use if it breaks).

Also it's fun :)

Re: Reserve the 418 status code

#42

Post by hueving »

jacquesm wrote: post #35
HappyTypist wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. Actually, there was a paper published recently on using a phone's gyro / accelerometer (through the HTML5 APIs) in order to keylog users; because the API is precise enough for you to detect subtle motion of the phone as you press on the software keyboard. Apparently in some mobile browsers, you can continue to poll the API even when your tab is not on focus.

Oh, that's really nice. So if you have a fix (and even if you don't) you can use dead reckoning and tie any points where the GPS is accessible and then re-create the path the phone took. That's a bit of a leak. Wonder how long after or before a GPS fix this would be effective, those phone accelerometers probably aren't all that accurate but you might be able to calibrate the one in a specific phone if you have data a…

IIRC the accelerometers are way to imprecise to correctly detect starts and stops. Errors compound so quickly that any kind of useful accuracy for dead reckoning is a long ways out.

Re: Reserve the 418 status code

#43

Post by [deleted] »

lccarrasco wrote: post #5
joombaga wrote: post #2

Why is 418 the particular target? Just because of RFC2324? > IANA should also typographically distinguish “Unassigned” and “Reserved” in the registry descriptions, to prevent confusion. This I can get onboard with. Honestly, I've never seen a 418 easter egg, but I'd think it would be an HTTP spec violation if it didn't at least conform to the higher level 4xx definition (Client Error) :)

An example of an existing easter egg (for reference): https://www.google.com/teapot

[deleted]

Re: Reserve the 418 status code

#44

Post by JimDabell »

mystrman111 wrote: post #21
toomanybeersies wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It was interesting reading the threads on /r/webdev about this whole debacle. The threads were full of people saying that he's an arsehole with too much time on his hands who must hate fun. Nobody actually stopped to read the guys bio and realise that he's more than qualified to be bringing up these issues. It doesn't help that the guy who made save418.com is literally 14 (which seems to be about the average age of /…

The /r/webdev thread ( https://www.reddit.com/r/webdev/comments/6stdcj/http_error_c... ) remained quite respectful actually, afaik there were no real hostile remarks directed towards Mark Nottingham within it. In fact, it's ironic - the very comment I'm replying to is probably more distasteful and antagonistic than anything that could be found in the Reddit thread.

He probably confused it with the /r/programming thread [0], where the top comments with hundreds of votes were stupid insults like "What a dick","miserable bastard", "the most boring man in the universe", "standards committee troll", "he had fun once and hated it", "Soulless, joyless, heathens":

[0] https://www.reddit.com/r/programming/comments/6sxea0/http_er...

Re: Reserve the 418 status code

#45

Post by vidarh »

peterwwillis wrote: post #14
geofft wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They can , but they believe in rough consensus and working code and in being conservative in what they do and liberal in what they accept from others. It's clear that a lot of real-world HTTP implementations are using HTTP 418 to mean I'm A Teapot, whether or not they should, and that reassigning it would cause practical difficulties.

That's not clear to me. Nobody relies on the feature, it's a tiny piece of code, only some vendors support it, and it's not even part of the spec. (It also can't be reassigned because it was never assigned to begin with) If they like 418, they can add it to the spec. But this idea that it's been "consumed" is weird. It's like saying was "consumed" in HTML because two browsers used to support it. It was just an unoffi…

Several discussions have included anecdotes from people about how they are using the 418 code for various things, so I don't know how you can be sure that nobody relies on it.

Re: Reserve the 418 status code

#46

Post by vidarh »

vacri wrote: post #30
concede_pluto wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Say you want to add some feature critical to correctness. "Request can't be committed until resent to other quorum members." Something serious like that. You can't use 418 for that feature because some non-conforming servers are already returning it as a joke. You'd have to triage new RFCs until you get one that isn't important enough to work reliably, and sacrifice it to use up the tainted code.

The 400-block is 69% free, after 28 years of development. If we're ever in the position where we need to free up just one more code , then we're already consuming beyond our capacity and will need to sort out an alternative anyway.

Exactly. If we run out of 400-codes without an alternative having been set out, such as e.g. designating one or more of the remaining 400 codes to specify extended formats for, somebody is not doing their jobs.

E.g. once (if ever) we're down to 10 or so free ones, assign them as broad categories and specify that the response text needs to contain an additional, longer status code (so, say, "499 1234 some text" and "499 4242 some text").

It's not as if tech doesn't have a long history of including extension fields like that, and it still works with the existing grammar

Re: Reserve the 418 status code

#47

Post by x7467 »

Izmaki wrote: post #34
joombaga wrote: post #2

Why is 418 the particular target? Just because of RFC2324? > IANA should also typographically distinguish “Unassigned” and “Reserved” in the registry descriptions, to prevent confusion. This I can get onboard with. Honestly, I've never seen a 418 easter egg, but I'd think it would be an HTTP spec violation if it didn't at least conform to the higher level 4xx definition (Client Error) :)

It is implemented as a valid HTTP code in the java Spring framework for everyone to support. That's how I learned about it first.

Same with the standard Go http package (https://golang.org/src/net/http/status.go?s=2540:2600).

Re: Reserve the 418 status code

#48

Post by pwdisswordfish »

mystrman111 wrote: post #38
LukeShu wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Often reddit threads read more respectful after-the-fact; the less respectful comments either get downvoted enough that they aren't displayed unless you look for them, or are moderated away. Often they are much harsher early in the thread. I'm not sure if that ways the case here, but it is common enough that I wouldn't doubt it.

When comments are removed by mods on Reddit, they're replaced with the text "[REMOVED]", which doesn't appear once in the referenced thread (insults would not be removed in the first place though, they break no /r/webdev rules). And you can scroll to the bottom of the thread to see all the downvoted comments, none of which are are condescending towards Mark. So no, that isn't the case here.

I believe the [removed] only appears in place of comments with replies that have not been deleted.

Though yeah, that still makes it rather implausible.

Re: Reserve the 418 status code

#49

Post by bjourne »

I'm somewhat interested in spec writing and legal matters. It seem to me, that this rfc is overly verbose given the change it proposes. And (I think, correct me if I'm wrong) rfc:s are generally supposed to be as short as possible.

For example, "IANA should also typographically distinguish “Unassigned” and “Reserved” in the registry descriptions, to prevent confusion." seem like a good idea but is an unrelated matter.

Re: Reserve the 418 status code

#50

Post by jacquesm »

hueving wrote: post #42
jacquesm wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, that's really nice. So if you have a fix (and even if you don't) you can use dead reckoning and tie any points where the GPS is accessible and then re-create the path the phone took. That's a bit of a leak. Wonder how long after or before a GPS fix this would be effective, those phone accelerometers probably aren't all that accurate but you might be able to calibrate the one in a specific phone if you have data a…

IIRC the accelerometers are way to imprecise to correctly detect starts and stops. Errors compound so quickly that any kind of useful accuracy for dead reckoning is a long ways out.

For once a bad sensor is good news.
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