Nearly every highly-rated comment points the finger at "stupid" web designers rather than at Google, because GWA simply reveals that putting side effects on links is dangerous.
I hope you appreciate the irony of posting such comments on a site whose Logout link is implemented via a GET (see upper left of your screen.) That's the point: every site implements Logout as a link, and Google should have recognized this.
PS while I'm writing I might as well point out my previous GWA comment from a few days before this whole controversy. I was kinda hoping to shed some light on this exact problem. No one noticed, so I went and told 37signals what was going on;)
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this (or at least I didn't see it in highly-rated comments.)
Most weblinks are harmless content URLs, but prefetching certain links can actually cause a side effect - besides the obvious one (messed up weblog stats.) For instance there are plenty of web UIs that use links to delete items, log out, etc. Simply hovering over these links will cause them to be invoked.
Most links are probably well-formed, such that actions use a dynamic URL link http://whatever?action=..., and the prefetcher won't follow those. But I've seen several sites that use apparently-static links to perform actions.
Wide adoption of prefetching is going to hurt these sites much like the XP SP2 "download protection" did... Should be interesting to see how it plays out.
You probably get no spam to your home or cell phone because it's too expensive to set up a company in China and make phone calls to the US, just to get around the laws. Unfortunately, it *is* basically free to send spam mail. If they could call you for free from outside the US, they would be doing that too.
I wish I had some mod points today - this is an informative post & deserves attention. Whether or not IE actually implements it, one explicit goal of the T/TCP RFC is to eliminate the initial handshake. (I say "whether or not" because I can't reconcile that some people are packet tracing and not seeing the described behavior... whole thing reeks of observation error on someone's part)
Meta-comments: Slashdot users should be as vigilant in exposing & preventing the dissemination of anti-MS FUD as they are of pro-MS FUD. People are always served better by knowing the truth *as well as* your opinion. Despite Slashdot's "news for nerds" tagline, it really isn't any more than an opinion site, basically the equivalent to talk radio news programs.
Before Slashdot can complete the jump to "trusted news" it will need to offer at least some mechanism for retracting wrong articles, among other journalism-integrity features. In true Slashdot tradition, I'm sure they'll be cleverly implemented via community metamoderation!
As you say, this is just an e-mail written by a VP about how to counter the PR effects of sensationalist media. Although I suspect the area of effect is bigger than just a Slashdot audience or it wouldn't have prompted the mail.
That said, there really isn't a single point of insight contained in ESR's comments other than his (correct) guesses at the acronyms.
It was only after reading through his blog that I realized what a blowhard ESR is - he's just like the newsgroup hogs who respond to every single point with vague, exaggerated, opinionated statements that can only lead to endless flamewars. Your link to his Al Queda story indicates the exact extent of his self-importance.
The message has become so corrupted by the messenger that I don't think I could trust any analysis by ESR at this point.
1. Decide which hotmail/yahoo/whatever account you want to sign up.
2. Send most of the (fake) registration info until it sends you a "turing test" image.
3. Display the image in the next webhit on your popular porn site saying "to get free porn, type these characters"
4. Send whatever they type to hotmail/yahoo/whatever & complete your registration.
5. Profit?
Despite the weight which a slashdot reference seems to give the article, make no mistake: this is a pseudo-science web page written by an "interesting" net personality. As a self-proclaimed cyber-yogi he is full of "interesting" ideasabout videogamesand religion.
In other words: read, enjoy, discuss. But caveat lector - reader beware.
After I released my scripting pack for Tribes I started going a little nuts with the scripts to show what it could do (this was before most people were running it.) So I wrote a version of "Pong"; it's still available somewhere on my site at http://www.planetstarsiege.com/presto. Then Cowboy saw that, and outdid me with his awesome Tetris clone.
At some point we were having more fun writing dumb little gadgets for Tribes than actually playing the game!:)
1. We didn't need flame supression zones (water jets?) to stop people from smoking in theaters. It just kind of happened as people started getting a clue.
2. It's not just movie theaters - meetings, sports games, etc. also get interrupted by cellphones. Not everything takes place in an enclosed room.
Rude people in movie theaters are a red herring - most cell phone violations are probably not specifically rude people, just people who don't "opt in" to courtesy (or forget to) because the barriers are too high. Today it's too hard to get your phone into quiet mode. So let's ask for a physical ringer switch on the phone (besides the power button, which causes you to completely lose missed calls.) That, plus funnier "turn your cell phone off" reminders, should mostly solve the problem.
The next best thing to do is to focus on taking courtesy from opt-in to opt-out. Just brainstorming, it'd be something like this: How about a "courtesy" feature so phones can receive a short-distance signal asking them to go quiet? People who want to ignore it can set that as a default, or you can always put it back in noisy mode. (Yeah, there's potential for mistakes and abuse. I'm not thinking this one out very deeply because I don't see any $$ incentive for people to deploy it anyway)
Slashdot Mirror
Nearly every highly-rated comment points the finger at "stupid" web designers rather than at Google, because GWA simply reveals that putting side effects on links is dangerous.
;)
I hope you appreciate the irony of posting such comments on a site whose Logout link is implemented via a GET (see upper left of your screen.) That's the point: every site implements Logout as a link, and Google should have recognized this.
PS while I'm writing I might as well point out my previous GWA comment from a few days before this whole controversy. I was kinda hoping to shed some light on this exact problem. No one noticed, so I went and told 37signals what was going on
I'm surprised no one has mentioned this (or at least I didn't see it in highly-rated comments.)
Most weblinks are harmless content URLs, but prefetching certain links can actually cause a side effect - besides the obvious one (messed up weblog stats.) For instance there are plenty of web UIs that use links to delete items, log out, etc. Simply hovering over these links will cause them to be invoked.
Most links are probably well-formed, such that actions use a dynamic URL link http://whatever?action=..., and the prefetcher won't follow those. But I've seen several sites that use apparently-static links to perform actions.
Wide adoption of prefetching is going to hurt these sites much like the XP SP2 "download protection" did... Should be interesting to see how it plays out.
You probably get no spam to your home or cell phone because it's too expensive to set up a company in China and make phone calls to the US, just to get around the laws. Unfortunately, it *is* basically free to send spam mail. If they could call you for free from outside the US, they would be doing that too.
Interesting read and all, but CmdrTaco, you forgot to mention how many spam mails you've received already today ...
Inquiring minds want to know!
;)
I wish I had some mod points today - this is an informative post & deserves attention. Whether or not IE actually implements it, one explicit goal of the T/TCP RFC is to eliminate the initial handshake. (I say "whether or not" because I can't reconcile that some people are packet tracing and not seeing the described behavior... whole thing reeks of observation error on someone's part)
Meta-comments: Slashdot users should be as vigilant in exposing & preventing the dissemination of anti-MS FUD as they are of pro-MS FUD. People are always served better by knowing the truth *as well as* your opinion. Despite Slashdot's "news for nerds" tagline, it really isn't any more than an opinion site, basically the equivalent to talk radio news programs.
Before Slashdot can complete the jump to "trusted news" it will need to offer at least some mechanism for retracting wrong articles, among other journalism-integrity features. In true Slashdot tradition, I'm sure they'll be cleverly implemented via community metamoderation!
As you say, this is just an e-mail written by a VP about how to counter the PR effects of sensationalist media. Although I suspect the area of effect is bigger than just a Slashdot audience or it wouldn't have prompted the mail. That said, there really isn't a single point of insight contained in ESR's comments other than his (correct) guesses at the acronyms. It was only after reading through his blog that I realized what a blowhard ESR is - he's just like the newsgroup hogs who respond to every single point with vague, exaggerated, opinionated statements that can only lead to endless flamewars. Your link to his Al Queda story indicates the exact extent of his self-importance. The message has become so corrupted by the messenger that I don't think I could trust any analysis by ESR at this point.
1. Decide which hotmail/yahoo/whatever account you want to sign up.
2. Send most of the (fake) registration info until it sends you a "turing test" image.
3. Display the image in the next webhit on your popular porn site saying "to get free porn, type these characters"
4. Send whatever they type to hotmail/yahoo/whatever & complete your registration.
5. Profit?
Despite the weight which a slashdot reference seems to give the article, make no mistake: this is a pseudo-science web page written by an "interesting" net personality. As a self-proclaimed cyber-yogi he is full of "interesting" ideas about videogames and religion.
In other words: read, enjoy, discuss. But caveat lector - reader beware.
After I released my scripting pack for Tribes I started going a little nuts with the scripts to show what it could do (this was before most people were running it.) So I wrote a version of "Pong"; it's still available somewhere on my site at http://www.planetstarsiege.com/presto. Then Cowboy saw that, and outdid me with his awesome Tetris clone.
:)
At some point we were having more fun writing dumb little gadgets for Tribes than actually playing the game!
1. We didn't need flame supression zones (water jets?) to stop people from smoking in theaters. It just kind of happened as people started getting a clue.
2. It's not just movie theaters - meetings, sports games, etc. also get interrupted by cellphones. Not everything takes place in an enclosed room.
Rude people in movie theaters are a red herring - most cell phone violations are probably not specifically rude people, just people who don't "opt in" to courtesy (or forget to) because the barriers are too high. Today it's too hard to get your phone into quiet mode. So let's ask for a physical ringer switch on the phone (besides the power button, which causes you to completely lose missed calls.) That, plus funnier "turn your cell phone off" reminders, should mostly solve the problem.
The next best thing to do is to focus on taking courtesy from opt-in to opt-out. Just brainstorming, it'd be something like this: How about a "courtesy" feature so phones can receive a short-distance signal asking them to go quiet? People who want to ignore it can set that as a default, or you can always put it back in noisy mode. (Yeah, there's potential for mistakes and abuse. I'm not thinking this one out very deeply because I don't see any $$ incentive for people to deploy it anyway)