"Way to go - that's brilliant way to scare off potential customers..."
Eh, sorry, in my worldview privacy comes before commercial concerns.
On the rest - why does it have to be a popup? Popups are evil anyway, in pretty much any situation I can think of. Just take them to a page saying - "As this is the first time you've used our site, we need to set a cookie to help you continue shopping"
I mean, it's not like people actually purchase anything through any internet shop without agreeing to a huge set of terms and conditions anyway, even if they don't read them.
If you need a basket type session before this point then can you not use session id's in the url? This may be like a hack to work around the absence of session cookies, but session cookies are kept for the lifetime of the browser session (not the tab, not when you leave a page) so can still allow cross-site tracking, if they are third-party.
I sure as hell don't want to. Somebody probably should though, as she's unwittingly feeding all sorts of info to whoever wants it on the internet, without her knowing.
Saying users have the choice is disingenuous here.
Don't set cookies without permission, if you really need a cookie then tell them they must have one to use the site. If they have previously allowed you to set one then there will be one there, or they'll have login details or whatever.
I don't get why there's more of a problem than this.
maybe I'm not getting it. Can you describe a situation in which this technical problem manifests itself?
"Correct me if I'm wrong but even when you disable cookies the browser typically still allows session cookies to be used."
Not when you're using the Cookie Monster firefox plugin set up the way I have it set up, no. You can enable session cookies or all cookies on a per-site basis.
Slashdot is one of the few sites that I do care about having working though, so I allow them to set what they like.
"This new legislation also applies to temporary session cookies. Almost every site where users can log in will be using session cookies to enable this."
Sure, and that's a valid use (IMHO). It could easily work this way though - User goes to front page Check for cookie If no cookie allow user to browse site When an action is taken that requires a cookie, present the user with the user agreement explaining about the cookie, and also a login box (if they have a login they must have previously agreed to cookies). When they login or click through then set the cookie, session or permanent depending on your agreement or preference or whatever.
If the cookie's there from the beginning then do the usual auto-login stuff.
A lot of people say that if they're not allowed to set an opt-out cookie, how do they know the user's opted out and how can they then use the site without a popup on every page. My answer to that would be to get them to make sure they actually need that cookie, and if they do then make it clear that the site won't work without it.
I realise all this makes things more complicated for end users as well, which is less than ideal.
It's probably true, but in this case I don't think they're necessarily wrong.
Cookies are horrifically overused, and outside of ~20 sites that both need them to function properly and I care about functioning properly, I've been getting on fine without them for months now.
This tells me that an awful lot of them, especially third party cookies (of which I allow none) are totally unnecessary even without privacy concerns. Having users participate in their own tracking this way, without permission, does seem wrong to me, and I applaud the effort to do something about it.
If the laws are not clear then unfortunately that is par for the course these days. Hopefully that can be fixed.
"any sufficiently complicated C program contains an ad hoc, extremely verbose and type-unsafe implementation of half of C++ object system"
You're probably not wrong there!
In my experience you can certainly end up (pretty quickly) with structs representing input/output interfaces and function pointers for common methods with different implementations.
Doesn't always go that way though. One way people often avoid it is through the use of callbacks, and even stacks of callbacks. I can't quite wrap my head around how those two things replace each other right now (error: not enough coffee) but it seems you usually get one or the other.
A lot of it seems to come down to the lobbying tactic -
"OMG look, the other guy just made his laws even more favourable to IP holders, if you don't do something fast we're going to lose all our business to them! I know, why don't we go one better and make it 1000 years copyright, and a criminal offence to even discuss DRM schemes in public without a license from the industry?"
And what's even better is that (using Adblock Pro) you can switch off 99% of this crap without affecting your browsing experience in the slightest. Which tells me that most of what it's doing is either -
1) For someone's benefit other than mine 2) Useless
Because as I remember it the EUCD came along after the DMCA, when the AA's and their european equivalents were able to point EU masters to the raging success it had become in the states. I don't recall either of them being based on treaties.
Not saying it didn't happen, but I don't remember reading about that stuff.
That's not homophobia. Or at least it's not homophobia from me, I'm merely the observer/reporter here. Notice the quotation marks around those words - Oddly enough those are actually quotations from what I've seen at/b/ and other places.
Apart from the quotations around "yes", they were totally unnecessary....
I'm afraid that's the lingo used in these places though. I'm not sure it's meant to be offensive to people who are actually gay (see the South Park episode about the changing meaning of the word fags), though it may well be. It's probably meant to be offensive to as many people as possible.
The suffix "-fag" is used extensively for anyone you don't like. And sometimes people you do like, or even yourself.
Is it to be encouraged? Probably not. What are you going to do to stop it though?
Given how much it has cost them in terms of PR, and how many "gamefags" are pissed off about not getting their PSN fix, the answer is probably "yes".
Therefore some of the less "moralfag" anons may well have had a hand in it. A bit like the schism over scientology protests and all the other things. Anonymous has a limited attention span due to any activity becoming "totally gay" after a while.
Gamers and tech heads, through IT folk, security researchers and software engineers. It's got articles for everyone. It's often more hardcore than slashdot these days, which says more about the decline of slashdot than anything else...
Some of the best engineers I've worked with don't program in their spare time. Hell, one or two of them went for prolonged periods of time without even any home internet access, because they had their fill of technology during the week.
Zeal and out-of-hours interest in coding are good things, but if you make them your main criteria you'll miss out on some very good people.
I don't like Sony, but I'll still give them money if they make something shiny
FTFY. Personally I feel they've been behaving badly enough that I feel it's against my own interests to give them my money, regardless of how shiny the latest gadget is.
There is no such thing as a context-free purchase.
Slashdot Mirror
Most people don't know they exist.
99% of them are worthless.
Tracking people without permission falls into the arena of the legal.
There are good technological solutions to stopping people hacking into your systems too, doesn't stop us making it a crime.
BTW, it's an EU directive, not UK only.
"Way to go - that's brilliant way to scare off potential customers..."
Eh, sorry, in my worldview privacy comes before commercial concerns.
On the rest - why does it have to be a popup? Popups are evil anyway, in pretty much any situation I can think of. Just take them to a page saying - "As this is the first time you've used our site, we need to set a cookie to help you continue shopping"
I mean, it's not like people actually purchase anything through any internet shop without agreeing to a huge set of terms and conditions anyway, even if they don't read them.
If you need a basket type session before this point then can you not use session id's in the url?
This may be like a hack to work around the absence of session cookies, but session cookies are kept for the lifetime of the browser session (not the tab, not when you leave a page) so can still allow cross-site tracking, if they are third-party.
You going to explain about cookies to my mother?
I sure as hell don't want to. Somebody probably should though, as she's unwittingly feeding all sorts of info to whoever wants it on the internet, without her knowing.
Saying users have the choice is disingenuous here.
What's not an answer to the technical problem?
Don't set cookies without permission, if you really need a cookie then tell them they must have one to use the site. If they have previously allowed you to set one then there will be one there, or they'll have login details or whatever.
I don't get why there's more of a problem than this.
maybe I'm not getting it. Can you describe a situation in which this technical problem manifests itself?
You'd be surprised how functional the internet is without cookies.
You need them for a lot of session-based stuff (login on forum sites, internet shopping/banking/etc) but most sites you visit don't really need them.
"Correct me if I'm wrong but even when you disable cookies the browser typically still allows session cookies to be used."
Not when you're using the Cookie Monster firefox plugin set up the way I have it set up, no. You can enable session cookies or all cookies on a per-site basis.
Slashdot is one of the few sites that I do care about having working though, so I allow them to set what they like.
"This new legislation also applies to temporary session cookies. Almost every site where users can log in will be using session cookies to enable this."
Sure, and that's a valid use (IMHO). It could easily work this way though -
User goes to front page
Check for cookie
If no cookie allow user to browse site
When an action is taken that requires a cookie, present the user with the user agreement explaining about the cookie, and also a login box (if they have a login they must have previously agreed to cookies). When they login or click through then set the cookie, session or permanent depending on your agreement or preference or whatever.
If the cookie's there from the beginning then do the usual auto-login stuff.
A lot of people say that if they're not allowed to set an opt-out cookie, how do they know the user's opted out and how can they then use the site without a popup on every page. My answer to that would be to get them to make sure they actually need that cookie, and if they do then make it clear that the site won't work without it.
I realise all this makes things more complicated for end users as well, which is less than ideal.
"I'm having trouble understanding why the UK law bans the use of biscuits. /girds loins/"
Not all biscuits, only unsolicited internet biscuits :)
What makes you think they don't understand?
It's probably true, but in this case I don't think they're necessarily wrong.
Cookies are horrifically overused, and outside of ~20 sites that both need them to function properly and I care about functioning properly, I've been getting on fine without them for months now.
This tells me that an awful lot of them, especially third party cookies (of which I allow none) are totally unnecessary even without privacy concerns. Having users participate in their own tracking this way, without permission, does seem wrong to me, and I applaud the effort to do something about it.
If the laws are not clear then unfortunately that is par for the course these days. Hopefully that can be fixed.
"any sufficiently complicated C program contains an ad hoc, extremely verbose and type-unsafe implementation of half of C++ object system"
You're probably not wrong there!
In my experience you can certainly end up (pretty quickly) with structs representing input/output interfaces and function pointers for common methods with different implementations.
Doesn't always go that way though. One way people often avoid it is through the use of callbacks, and even stacks of callbacks. I can't quite wrap my head around how those two things replace each other right now (error: not enough coffee) but it seems you usually get one or the other.
Certainly can't disagree with that.
A lot of it seems to come down to the lobbying tactic -
"OMG look, the other guy just made his laws even more favourable to IP holders, if you don't do something fast we're going to lose all our business to them! I know, why don't we go one better and make it 1000 years copyright, and a criminal offence to even discuss DRM schemes in public without a license from the industry?"
And what's even better is that (using Adblock Pro) you can switch off 99% of this crap without affecting your browsing experience in the slightest. Which tells me that most of what it's doing is either -
1) For someone's benefit other than mine
2) Useless
Really? Got any sources on that?
Because as I remember it the EUCD came along after the DMCA, when the AA's and their european equivalents were able to point EU masters to the raging success it had become in the states. I don't recall either of them being based on treaties.
Not saying it didn't happen, but I don't remember reading about that stuff.
Hell, do both, then tumblr have no control over the blog domain.
It's easy to set up and you're not relying on goodwill to keep "ilikebigbugs.blogspot.com" or whatever it turns out to be
No, it's about intent.
Just shoving in a shim, for no other reason than working around the GPL, is very dodgy ground.
Don't try and treat the law like a compiler/linker. That's not what it is.
Well good luck with that, they don't seem to come to slashdot to consult the wiser, older people on use of language.
That's not homophobia. Or at least it's not homophobia from me, I'm merely the observer/reporter here. Notice the quotation marks around those words - Oddly enough those are actually quotations from what I've seen at /b/ and other places.
Apart from the quotations around "yes", they were totally unnecessary....
I'm afraid that's the lingo used in these places though. I'm not sure it's meant to be offensive to people who are actually gay (see the South Park episode about the changing meaning of the word fags), though it may well be. It's probably meant to be offensive to as many people as possible.
The suffix "-fag" is used extensively for anyone you don't like. And sometimes people you do like, or even yourself.
Is it to be encouraged? Probably not. What are you going to do to stop it though?
And so far every one of them has f*cked up and screwed people over at every chance they've had.
Sony blew it multiple times.
Anon... well they're not trying to sell me anything or sue me so I don't care.
Given how much it has cost them in terms of PR, and how many "gamefags" are pissed off about not getting their PSN fix, the answer is probably "yes".
Therefore some of the less "moralfag" anons may well have had a hand in it. A bit like the schism over scientology protests and all the other things. Anonymous has a limited attention span due to any activity becoming "totally gay" after a while.
I find the whole thing hilarious.
Interesting, never heard of prototype based OO before. It sounds very haphazard and javascript-ish though from what I've now read.
Meh, I'm not even involved in classes. Good ol' C is good enough for me :)
"That, then, means that it's time for a new job where I get to actually write programs."
This year I have done more coding at home than ever before.
And yes, it has the same meaning. Work sucks at the moment.
"The Register's audience is regular users"
El Reg?
Hardly.
Gamers and tech heads, through IT folk, security researchers and software engineers. It's got articles for everyone. It's often more hardcore than slashdot these days, which says more about the decline of slashdot than anything else...
That's ridiculous.
Some of the best engineers I've worked with don't program in their spare time. Hell, one or two of them went for prolonged periods of time without even any home internet access, because they had their fill of technology during the week.
Zeal and out-of-hours interest in coding are good things, but if you make them your main criteria you'll miss out on some very good people.
I don't like Sony, but I'll still give them money if they make something shiny
FTFY.
Personally I feel they've been behaving badly enough that I feel it's against my own interests to give them my money, regardless of how shiny the latest gadget is.
There is no such thing as a context-free purchase.
Pretty sure that inheritance is actually part of the definition of OO, in fact java is not seen as pure OO because it dissalows multiple inheritance.
but what do I know? I'm just a C programmer...
That's not weird!
"123" is a pointer to an array of characters. "123" + 1 just moves the pointer along one position, as it should do in any sensible language.
Pointers are awesome.