> why netscape thought it a good idea to allow any site an almost arbitrary level of control over my browser is beyond me.
Let's just take it a step further. I don't want any graphical applications I run to be able to resize their windows nor pop up dialog boxes, and I should be able to disable all graphical elments. Because everyone perfers less interactivity, especially me.
It's *MY* computer, thank you. There's no reason an application should be able to do anything without my explicit permission.
> 1) Is Spam free. > 2) Is secure. > 3) Is failsafe - i.e. if the recipient doesn't receive the message, I want to know about it. > Surely from a technical perspective, this isn't that difficult?
1) People have been trying for years
2) People have been trying for years
3) We already have return-receipts which accomplish the same thing. Most people intentionally choose to disable this feature, because it makes it harder to ignore those e-mails. In the world of instant message, I want people to send me an e-mail and expect to wait for a response, instead of thinking "Oh, he got my mail, it's been 10 minutes, why hasn't he replied yet?"
There's nothing that frustrates me more than arguing over semantics than people who define their lives by it!
RMS, RMS, RMS, damn that man to the darkest reaches of hell. Hell as in a place of sufferring, not Hell in the Judeo/Christian sense of the word.
If I have to hear, hear as in read, one more person explain the difference between free beer and liberated software, or one more time how it should appropriately called GNU/Linux, I swear to god someone is going to pay.
Seriously, does this guy go OUT OF HIS WAY to frustrate people? How many times does he want to explain his definition of free software? Wouldn't it be simpler to simply come up with a less ambigious term? But OHHH NOOOOOO, why should he compromise?
I can only imagine the poor people that have to live with this man.
Wife: Richard! I told you to take out the garbage two hours ago!
RMS: Dear, that's not <i>garbage</i>, that's.. Uh.. Let's see.. Used Tissues, some coffee grounds, and my old porno rags. Now if you had simply used the proper terms in the first place..
Wife: Would you just take it out!
RMS: Look, I'm not even going to speak to you further unless you speak to me in the correct syntax.
Wife: GODDAMNIT!!!!
So GREAT. I can't wait to get this guy and a lawyer in the same room. It will be poetic.
> i have managed to successfully explain why open source programs are good to a number of non-programmers. Even my mother, who is one of the most computer illiterate people on the planet, was able to grasp the concept.
That's not really fair though. I'm not arguing against the merits of open source, but I can get my three year old to agree with me on most things because he lacks familiarity with the subjects to form an opinion of his own.
As long as cigarettes are legal, I think it's silly to bring legal action against the manufacturers, cigarettes are bad for you and as far as I know, everyone is familiar with this. As soon as cigarettes are outlawed, then if someone wants to keep distibuting then, then sue away.
I think if anyone wanted to sue Microsoft for having security holes, they'd have to take a long hard look at themselves first and think about the consequences. Such action would have strong merit however if you could point to a a vulerability that Microsoft intentionally introduced or refused to fix, such as a backdoor.
There are a lot of injustices in the world, but it's important to pick your battles carefully. Today it's people using windows exploits to DDOS vulnerable sites, tomorrow it might be a bug in sendmail or bind doing the same thing.
Maybe, but if an Linux exploit is ever used by some IRC bozos, do you really want legal precident that says the companies can sue Linus?
Sure, Microsoft is responsible for fixing the bugs, but it's the DDOSers that are commiting the actual crime. Blaming Microsoft is ultimately a cop-out, like suing the cigarette manufacturers or video game companies.
Engineers often fall into this trap, you're narrow-focusing on the problem to the point that you're missing the big picture.
This doesn't have anything to do with the legislation of a standard internet protocol, it's about presenting the end user with an informed decision to accept or reject a cookie. I don't believe that the law is saying sweedish web browsers have to handle the implementation any differently, no? Just because an RFC defines a set-cookie as a request to the client, doesn't mean that the 'client' is in a position to make an informed decision whether to accept. All this worry about trying to legistlate a protocol is missing the point, you're getting too tangled up. Step away from the computer for a while and get the big picture.
Spam is kind of the same thing. We're trying to create a metaprotocol on top of SMTP-- Hey, you can't send me that mail unless I've personally signed up for your commercial mailing list! You don't have a similar problem with anti-SPAM movements, do you? (Feel free to draw a comparison between spam and unwanted cookies)
I'm not saying the law isn't unneccesary or drafted by people who don't understand web technologies, but let's argue it in the context of personal responsibility and education rather than meaningless protocol mumbo-jumbo.
It seems a fair trade off would be to force sites that set a cookie to provide a link to explain which cookies are set. This link would have to be viewable from any page, probably stashed in the footer somewhere.
Slashdot Mirror
> why netscape thought it a good idea to allow any site an almost arbitrary level of control over my browser is beyond me.
Let's just take it a step further. I don't want any graphical applications I run to be able to resize their windows nor pop up dialog boxes, and I should be able to disable all graphical elments. Because everyone perfers less interactivity, especially me.
It's *MY* computer, thank you. There's no reason an application should be able to do anything without my explicit permission.
Sure, we'll get right on this. When you file, make sure to post scans of your papers, we'll be right behind ya.
> 1) Is Spam free.
> 2) Is secure.
> 3) Is failsafe - i.e. if the recipient doesn't receive the message, I want to know about it.
> Surely from a technical perspective, this isn't that difficult?
1) People have been trying for years
2) People have been trying for years
3) We already have return-receipts which accomplish the same thing. Most people intentionally choose to disable this feature, because it makes it harder to ignore those e-mails. In the world of instant message, I want people to send me an e-mail and expect to wait for a response, instead of thinking "Oh, he got my mail, it's been 10 minutes, why hasn't he replied yet?"
There's nothing that frustrates me more than arguing over semantics than people who define their lives by it!
RMS, RMS, RMS, damn that man to the darkest reaches of hell. Hell as in a place of sufferring, not Hell in the Judeo/Christian sense of the word.
If I have to hear, hear as in read, one more person explain the difference between free beer and liberated software, or one more time how it should appropriately called GNU/Linux, I swear to god someone is going to pay.
Seriously, does this guy go OUT OF HIS WAY to frustrate people? How many times does he want to explain his definition of free software? Wouldn't it be simpler to simply come up with a less ambigious term? But OHHH NOOOOOO, why should he compromise?
I can only imagine the poor people that have to live with this man.
Wife: Richard! I told you to take out the garbage two hours ago!
RMS: Dear, that's not <i>garbage</i>, that's.. Uh.. Let's see.. Used Tissues, some coffee grounds, and my old porno rags. Now if you had simply used the proper terms in the first place..
Wife: Would you just take it out!
RMS: Look, I'm not even going to speak to you further unless you speak to me in the correct syntax.
Wife: GODDAMNIT!!!!
So GREAT. I can't wait to get this guy and a lawyer in the same room. It will be poetic.
> i have managed to successfully explain why open source programs are good to a number of non-programmers. Even my mother, who is one of the most computer illiterate people on the planet, was able to grasp the concept.
That's not really fair though. I'm not arguing against the merits of open source, but I can get my three year old to agree with me on most things because he lacks familiarity with the subjects to form an opinion of his own.
Oy. You can tell I'm a slashdot noob because that totally stripped all my line breaks, like I'm an illiterate boob or something.
As long as cigarettes are legal, I think it's silly to bring legal action against the manufacturers, cigarettes are bad for you and as far as I know, everyone is familiar with this. As soon as cigarettes are outlawed, then if someone wants to keep distibuting then, then sue away. I think if anyone wanted to sue Microsoft for having security holes, they'd have to take a long hard look at themselves first and think about the consequences. Such action would have strong merit however if you could point to a a vulerability that Microsoft intentionally introduced or refused to fix, such as a backdoor. There are a lot of injustices in the world, but it's important to pick your battles carefully. Today it's people using windows exploits to DDOS vulnerable sites, tomorrow it might be a bug in sendmail or bind doing the same thing.
Maybe, but if an Linux exploit is ever used by some IRC bozos, do you really want legal precident that says the companies can sue Linus?
Sure, Microsoft is responsible for fixing the bugs, but it's the DDOSers that are commiting the actual crime. Blaming Microsoft is ultimately a cop-out, like suing the cigarette manufacturers or video game companies.
Engineers often fall into this trap, you're narrow-focusing on the problem to the point that you're missing the big picture.
This doesn't have anything to do with the legislation of a standard internet protocol, it's about presenting the end user with an informed decision to accept or reject a cookie. I don't believe that the law is saying sweedish web browsers have to handle the implementation any differently, no? Just because an RFC defines a set-cookie as a request to the client, doesn't mean that the 'client' is in a position to make an informed decision whether to accept. All this worry about trying to legistlate a protocol is missing the point, you're getting too tangled up. Step away from the computer for a while and get the big picture.
Spam is kind of the same thing. We're trying to create a metaprotocol on top of SMTP-- Hey, you can't send me that mail unless I've personally signed up for your commercial mailing list! You don't have a similar problem with anti-SPAM movements, do you? (Feel free to draw a comparison between spam and unwanted cookies)
I'm not saying the law isn't unneccesary or drafted by people who don't understand web technologies, but let's argue it in the context of personal responsibility and education rather than meaningless protocol mumbo-jumbo.
It seems a fair trade off would be to force sites that set a cookie to provide a link to explain which cookies are set. This link would have to be viewable from any page, probably stashed in the footer somewhere.