Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

How's Mozilla Doing with Do Not Track? Not So Good

readwriteweb.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

21–30 of 34 posts

Re: How's Mozilla Doing with Do Not Track? Not So Good

#21

Post by sbierwagen »

azakai wrote: post #18
hexis wrote: post #17

DNT is like putting a note atop your plain text file asking unintended recipients to ignore the contents. What browsers need is something akin to encryption, where you're not asking for compliance, you're denying access.

> DNT is like putting a note atop your plain text file asking unintended recipients to ignore the contents. Well, robots.txt is a simple text file that politely asks robots to not spider parts of your website. It is completely voluntary and unenforceable, but works very well.

  It is completely voluntary and unenforceable, but works very well.
Ha! It works very well: for Google, and Yahoo. They use informative user-agents, and respect robots.txt directives. They have to, they're large corporations, with shareholders.

Everybody else ignores it. Why would they listen?

Live example:

  216.55.185.45 - - [11/Sep/2011:06:50:56 -0400] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 4835 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:5.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/5.0"
  216.55.185.45 - - [11/Sep/2011:06:50:57 -0400] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 4835 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:5.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/5.0"
  216.55.185.45 - - [11/Sep/2011:06:50:57 -0400] "GET /blog/ HTTP/1.0" 200 114535 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:5.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/5.0"
  216.55.185.45 - - [11/Sep/2011:06:51:01 -0400] "GET /blog/archives/2010/01/12/creating_an_account_on_the_scp_wiki_is_like_pissing_glass/ HTTP/1.0" 200 10490 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:5.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/5.0"
This is all the traffic from this IP, with no lines skipped. You might notice that it doesn't request CSS, or any of the linked images, or favicon.ico. Nor does it populate the referral header fields, which of course it would be doing if it was actually Firefox, and there was actually a human clicking on these links. It doesn't even bother requesting a robots.txt, which I don't have anyway.[1] Do a whois check on the IP, and we get:

  Codero CODERO1999A (NET-216-55-176-0-1) 216.55.176.0 - 216.55.187.255
Codero's a dedicated server host. This is a spambot, looking for email addresses. Visit the IP in a browser, and you see a site selling fake Tiffany jewelry.

1: http://www.archiveteam.org/index.php?title=Robots.txt

Re: How's Mozilla Doing with Do Not Track? Not So Good

#22

Post by ez77 »

endtwist wrote: post #3

The DNT initiative always reminded me of the "Evil Bit" joke: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt

When the IP standard was defined, was this bit purposely left undefined? Is this newer RFC really a joke, and nothing but a joke? How come the IETF allows just-kidding RFCs? I'm puzzled...

Re: How's Mozilla Doing with Do Not Track? Not So Good

#23

Post by sbierwagen »

ez77 wrote: post #22
endtwist wrote: post #3

The DNT initiative always reminded me of the "Evil Bit" joke: http://www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc3514.txt

When the IP standard was defined, was this bit purposely left undefined? Is this newer RFC really a joke, and nothing but a joke? How come the IETF allows just-kidding RFCs? I'm puzzled...

Note the date. Typically people submit joke RFCs on April 1st.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_Fools%27_Day_RFC

Also, RFCs are not terribly heavyweight technical documents. They're essentially memos, not ISO standards. Any (demonstrably competent) person can submit a RFC, and if it becomes popular, then the idea enters the standards track, and new, better RFCs are issued based on it.

Re: How's Mozilla Doing with Do Not Track? Not So Good

#24

Post by gst »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #16
gst wrote: post #14

Why should people turn it on - when most people just don't care? That's the same problem we have in the EU right now. The correct way to deal with cookies would be for people to enable or disable them in their browser, according to their personal preferences. Instead, the EU forces their cookie legislation on everybody, because most people are too lazy to fix their preferences.

Most people have no idea what a "cookie" is, nor how or why they should manage them. Calling people lazy for not managing them is the epitome of engineering arrogance. Browsers need better, more clear, interfaces for managing cookies and websites need to provide easily parses info on what each cookie is for before people will even be able to manage them.

If you're using a car it's taken for granted that you learn how this thing works. If you're using it without learning how it works, it's your own fault, if you have an accident.

Why should this be any different with computers? The risk that you pose to others is pretty low, so there shouldn't be any requirement to have a "license". But I wouldn't call it arrogance, if I'll assume that someone using the network has a minimum knowledge about how things work.

Re: How's Mozilla Doing with Do Not Track? Not So Good

#25

Post by blahedo »

gst wrote: post #24
SoftwareMaven wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most people have no idea what a "cookie" is, nor how or why they should manage them. Calling people lazy for not managing them is the epitome of engineering arrogance. Browsers need better, more clear, interfaces for managing cookies and websites need to provide easily parses info on what each cookie is for before people will even be able to manage them.

If you're using a car it's taken for granted that you learn how this thing works. If you're using it without learning how it works, it's your own fault, if you have an accident. Why should this be any different with computers? The risk that you pose to others is pretty low, so there shouldn't be any requirement to have a "license". But I wouldn't call it arrogance, if I'll assume that someone using the network has a…

> If you're using a car it's taken for granted that you learn how this thing works.

Only to a point. I own a car and am perfectly competent to use it, but I have only the vaguest of understanding as to what things like spark plugs and catalytic converters do. I know what a manifold is in mathematics, and I suppose it's a bit similar in a car engine. I deem myself knowledgeable to open the bonnet and add windshield wiper fluid when that's low, but anything more complicated I'll take to a mechanic.

> If you're using it without learning how it works, it's your own fault, if you have an accident.

It's my fault if I drive without, say, learning how to operate the brake pedal, or learning how to turn on the turn signal. But if the accident is due to something wrong with the internals that I know very little about? I don't think any reasonable person believes that getting licensed to drive should require one to have the knowledge of an automobile mechanic.

Re: How's Mozilla Doing with Do Not Track? Not So Good

#26

Post by thwarted »

SoftwareMaven wrote: post #16
gst wrote: post #14

Why should people turn it on - when most people just don't care? That's the same problem we have in the EU right now. The correct way to deal with cookies would be for people to enable or disable them in their browser, according to their personal preferences. Instead, the EU forces their cookie legislation on everybody, because most people are too lazy to fix their preferences.

Most people have no idea what a "cookie" is, nor how or why they should manage them. Calling people lazy for not managing them is the epitome of engineering arrogance. Browsers need better, more clear, interfaces for managing cookies and websites need to provide easily parses info on what each cookie is for before people will even be able to manage them.

This is partially what the P3P standard was defined to help with, and the only browser that every seemed to do anything mildly meaningful with it was Internet Explorer. All IE did was refuse to set/keep cookies if either a P3P header wasn't provided or it didn't match the "user's preferences" (which the user never looked at or understood), so it just ended up causing headaches for web developers who at first tried to figure out which parts of the site's privacy policy matched the codes in the header value. When they found out that didn't work, they just copied the value of Google's P3P header. So many sites' privacy and data collection policies didn't match what they were asserting in the P3P headers, because otherwise, the site didn't work.

Re: How's Mozilla Doing with Do Not Track? Not So Good

#27

Post by thwarted »

blahedo wrote: post #25
gst wrote: post #24

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you're using a car it's taken for granted that you learn how this thing works. If you're using it without learning how it works, it's your own fault, if you have an accident. Why should this be any different with computers? The risk that you pose to others is pretty low, so there shouldn't be any requirement to have a "license". But I wouldn't call it arrogance, if I'll assume that someone using the network has a…

> If you're using a car it's taken for granted that you learn how this thing works. Only to a point. I own a car and am perfectly competent to use it, but I have only the vaguest of understanding as to what things like spark plugs and catalytic converters do. I know what a manifold is in mathematics, and I suppose it's a bit similar in a car engine. I deem myself knowledgeable to open the bonnet and add windshield wi…

This isn't the equivalent of spark plugs. It's the equivalent knowing how the windows work. If you drive around with the windows down while yelling at the person in the passenger, seat, don't be surprised if other people can hear you. And you can't use as a defense that you didn't know that you needed to have the windows up.

Re: How's Mozilla Doing with Do Not Track? Not So Good

#28

Post by dredmorbius »

Xuzz wrote: post #6

Most of us on Hacker News, from what I can tell, are generally against legislating the Internet. But, that's exactly what DNT requires to be effective, since it provides no technical barrier against tracking: either websites are legislated into being required to honor it, or it has essentially no value to users. As much as privacy is important, I'm actually glad that Chrome doesn't support DNT. Hopefully that will gi…

Speak for yourself.

I'm against bad laws.

I'm for good laws.

If a realm of human activity exists in which unregulated behavior trends toward maximum social benefit, reasonable minds will contemplate whether or not appropriate regulation (and enforcement of same) might be beneficial.

Say: putting teeth into DNT, allowing for civil penalties (a border condition in which law and private enforcement both come into play), and civil penalties for egregious flouting of the law.

Re: How's Mozilla Doing with Do Not Track? Not So Good

#29

Post by [deleted] »

sbierwagen wrote: post #21
azakai wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> DNT is like putting a note atop your plain text file asking unintended recipients to ignore the contents. Well, robots.txt is a simple text file that politely asks robots to not spider parts of your website. It is completely voluntary and unenforceable, but works very well.

It is completely voluntary and unenforceable, but works very well. Ha! It works very well: for Google, and Yahoo. They use informative user-agents, and respect robots.txt directives. They have to, they're large corporations, with shareholders. Everybody else ignores it. Why would they listen? Live example: 216.55.185.45 - - [11/Sep/2011:06:50:56 -0400] "GET / HTTP/1.0" 200 4835 "-" "Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; rv:5.…

[deleted]
Post reply on HN