Tracking is socialist government snooping. A majority of what is legitimately tracked could be done, as someone pointed out earlier, with black box statistics. There's no need to log identifying information. With a black box statistics model, should the government ask for logs, they would receive statistical indeces with no matrix key to translate it back to meaningful network information.
To hell with the marketers. They couldn't market their way out of a wet paper bag if this is the best method they can come up with.
You're not going to be able to justify socialist government snooping by pointing out how well this works out for some marketing exec. At least not to me. Call me when it increases my paycheck.
If they pay me well I'll let the government snoop all they like. That's probably what the marketing exec is thinking. There's no question who can afford larger campaign contributions. They don't bother him about his tax shelters and insider trading and he continues to donate proper amounts to the proper people. Meanwhile the rest of the citizenry is sold off to the gypsies.
For some reason there's no problem with print advertising in newspapers, or magazines, or trade journals, or billboard signs on the highway. Advertisers happily pay the fee based upon little more than a demographic and they take, at face value, the numbers related to distribution.
So tell me logically why the computer industry is so heavily saddled with this absolute requirement to push for absolute tracking of everything?
It doesn't make sense. It's an excuse for something else. It must be.
Maybe they'll just write a law requiring Google to make use of FF's new HTTP PING feature to send pings to $porno_search_term.cia.gov. Collecting the data on the fly is so much easier than subpoenaing to get logs.
they would be taken for a ride by dishonest server operators handing them fake logs
This is the world's smallest violin playing just for the web admins who can't figure out how to get their collective acts together and cooperate. Why should their ineptitude become the user's responsibility?
and didn't mind writing a little server-side code, one could just do that as a CGI or something pretty darned easily
Thank you. Since all of this can be done server side so darned easily then why has it become accepted fact that client applications must support this crap? It all comes down to exploiting the user. Don't try to make any more arguments about improving the user's experience. This is solely about exploiting the users in situations where the web admin doesn't have the proper priveleges to do what he wants on the server side.
If you want to be able to assimilate user data then pay for a decent hosting company.
That's really really really really weak. I can't think of a single page, in the last year, where I've grumbled "darnit I just wish this hit counter pic would finish downloading".
Weak. So very very weak. So weak that it is worth pointing out just how weak it is. Weak weak weak. So weak that my pet toad could wrestle it like a cricket. Weak weak weak.
I claim invention rights on a WWW based internet notify list based upon a collaborative effort by websites using HTTP PING, or other WWW methods, and a centralized server...:)
How much demand is there for this feature to be implemented on the server side? ie. I load a page with a ping request, my client forwards the request to the server which gave me the page and the server then makes the ping to the address inside the request?
Why must I, as the client user, be automatically included on an internet notify list? Will Slashdot moderators be notified when I wake up in the morning and check Sourceforge if the sf.net page has a ping for something like user-track-for-moderator-awareness.slashdot.org? Will e-mails read on Gmail be able to request pings so that we can get subpoenas in e-mail?
Because those of us who actually know how this stuff works know where to draw a line
Okay. Your UID is low enough that you can't possibly be new. I'm going to assume that you just had a brain fart. I have once, yet, to see web devs make more than the most token efforts to convince users that they're not selling us out.
it's just one more HTTP request coming from your browser
Really? So why is it so necessary above and beyond what's already available? So many vague explanations and none of them really require client side interaction.
I wasn't making a slippery slope argument. I was showing a logical progression. Today the devs want to be able to request a ping. Tomorrow they'll want more. This is Linux ActiveX, that's all it is.
You're very adamant that tracking will never go away. Don't you see a problem with that at all? Not even a little? You have absolutely no thoughts that maybe, just maybe, this whole internet tracking thing has gone just a little too far?
And what of the next step? Can I change the request for a ping to a an xhost? How much further towards a Linux ActiveX implementation do you want to go before even you decide that, from a security standpoint, this is obviously circumventing delineations between my system and your system?
You can argue inevitability all you like. That doesn't make it so.
If you can show that the PING approach has any additional impact
Today it's ping. Tomorrow the internet becomes pay per click, or the browsers will provide the pages with an entire shell to play with. There's pretty much only one reason to want to include ping as a requestable client side functionality and that reason does not belong in a web browser.
At least with javascript and a href you can lie and say you're not tracking the users. With ping the plausible deniability goes to zero pretty fast.
You haven't answered anything head on. You have not given a single example of any web functionality, from the user's perspective, which would require client side code to facilitate tracking.
Again, your entire argument is centered on "it can already be done, so what's wrong with it?" My question still is,"Why do I want this code running on my system?" You give a few examples but none of them require client side tracking.
In their eyes his computer was broken. I'm sure they would've been more than happy to help him file the request to have his machine repaired by an IT approved reinstallation of the OS.
Unless this is a socialist republic where the government has an interest in explicitly controlling society why, and with what authority, does the government classify citizens' rights based upon the concept of marriage?
I have enough of a technical understanding to know that everything which you cite could be done from the server side without embedding easter eggs in the client code for the advertisers to find and use. Your arguments so far have been,"It can already be done." If so then why do we need yet another way to do it? Why do I, as a user, want to blindly do someone else's work for them without seeing my own benefit?
The "existing protocols" leak information when behaving exactly as designed and specified, and can't be secured without throwing them out and writing completely new standards
Maybe, maybe not. Buggy standards should be rewritten from the ground up if that's what is needed.
Requesting that images be loaded from a different server couldn't be allowed
That's just bunk. The issue here is tracking mechanisms embedded in the client application. If you look at my history you'll see that I'm all in favor of whatever they feel like doing on the server side. Put a href wherever you like. If that's enough for tracking then why are all these other vectors needed?
So -- if you want to live in that world, here's what you do
Who is benefitting so greatly from the current insecure implementations that I'm required to behave like a hermit just to stay aware of possible exploitation whether it be computer, social, financial, political, or otherwise?
To continue my metaphor (this is the parents checking on the kids when everything goes quiet): Your protests sound very similar to,"Nothing Dad. We're just reading." while carefully tucking something under the bed.
Slashdot Mirror
From my view, as the client user, I'm not concerned with adding code, which has no purpose other than tracking, for the sake of the mass of humanity.
Due to name recognition of transmeta I checked out the Efficeon. What's wrong with it? It looks like it has potential.
I had a Cyrix 166. They actually had a chance at one point.
Tracking is socialist government snooping. A majority of what is legitimately tracked could be done, as someone pointed out earlier, with black box statistics. There's no need to log identifying information. With a black box statistics model, should the government ask for logs, they would receive statistical indeces with no matrix key to translate it back to meaningful network information.
To hell with the marketers. They couldn't market their way out of a wet paper bag if this is the best method they can come up with.
You're not going to be able to justify socialist government snooping by pointing out how well this works out for some marketing exec. At least not to me. Call me when it increases my paycheck.
If they pay me well I'll let the government snoop all they like. That's probably what the marketing exec is thinking. There's no question who can afford larger campaign contributions. They don't bother him about his tax shelters and insider trading and he continues to donate proper amounts to the proper people. Meanwhile the rest of the citizenry is sold off to the gypsies.
For some reason there's no problem with print advertising in newspapers, or magazines, or trade journals, or billboard signs on the highway. Advertisers happily pay the fee based upon little more than a demographic and they take, at face value, the numbers related to distribution.
So tell me logically why the computer industry is so heavily saddled with this absolute requirement to push for absolute tracking of everything?
It doesn't make sense. It's an excuse for something else. It must be.
Maybe they'll just write a law requiring Google to make use of FF's new HTTP PING feature to send pings to $porno_search_term.cia.gov. Collecting the data on the fly is so much easier than subpoenaing to get logs.
Deciseconds... that's weak.
If you want to be able to assimilate user data then pay for a decent hosting company.
That's really really really really weak. I can't think of a single page, in the last year, where I've grumbled "darnit I just wish this hit counter pic would finish downloading".
Weak. So very very weak. So weak that it is worth pointing out just how weak it is. Weak weak weak. So weak that my pet toad could wrestle it like a cricket. Weak weak weak.
I claim invention rights on a WWW based internet notify list based upon a collaborative effort by websites using HTTP PING, or other WWW methods, and a centralized server... :)
How much demand is there for this feature to be implemented on the server side? ie. I load a page with a ping request, my client forwards the request to the server which gave me the page and the server then makes the ping to the address inside the request?
Why must I, as the client user, be automatically included on an internet notify list? Will Slashdot moderators be notified when I wake up in the morning and check Sourceforge if the sf.net page has a ping for something like user-track-for-moderator-awareness.slashdot.org? Will e-mails read on Gmail be able to request pings so that we can get subpoenas in e-mail?
Look... there's just no good reason for this.
Really? So why is it so necessary above and beyond what's already available? So many vague explanations and none of them really require client side interaction.
I wasn't making a slippery slope argument. I was showing a logical progression. Today the devs want to be able to request a ping. Tomorrow they'll want more. This is Linux ActiveX, that's all it is.
You're very adamant that tracking will never go away. Don't you see a problem with that at all? Not even a little? You have absolutely no thoughts that maybe, just maybe, this whole internet tracking thing has gone just a little too far?
And what of the next step? Can I change the request for a ping to a an xhost? How much further towards a Linux ActiveX implementation do you want to go before even you decide that, from a security standpoint, this is obviously circumventing delineations between my system and your system?
You can argue inevitability all you like. That doesn't make it so.
At least with javascript and a href you can lie and say you're not tracking the users. With ping the plausible deniability goes to zero pretty fast.
You haven't answered anything head on. You have not given a single example of any web functionality, from the user's perspective, which would require client side code to facilitate tracking.
Your use of the term destructive is debatable. There's no clear indication that existing methods are destructive.
Accepting this "less destructive" method will not remove the others from use.
You don't expect me to take the page load time FUD seriously, do you?
What's next after ping? A bash shell hosted inside of Moz for the server side pages to play with?
I really wish I could work a Hitler reference in on this one, too.
What you've cited is exactly what the Nazis told the people who were being relocated.
Again, your entire argument is centered on "it can already be done, so what's wrong with it?" My question still is,"Why do I want this code running on my system?" You give a few examples but none of them require client side tracking.
In their eyes his computer was broken. I'm sure they would've been more than happy to help him file the request to have his machine repaired by an IT approved reinstallation of the OS.
Unless this is a socialist republic where the government has an interest in explicitly controlling society why, and with what authority, does the government classify citizens' rights based upon the concept of marriage?
I have enough of a technical understanding to know that everything which you cite could be done from the server side without embedding easter eggs in the client code for the advertisers to find and use. Your arguments so far have been,"It can already be done." If so then why do we need yet another way to do it? Why do I, as a user, want to blindly do someone else's work for them without seeing my own benefit?
That's just bunk. The issue here is tracking mechanisms embedded in the client application. If you look at my history you'll see that I'm all in favor of whatever they feel like doing on the server side. Put a href wherever you like. If that's enough for tracking then why are all these other vectors needed?
Who is benefitting so greatly from the current insecure implementations that I'm required to behave like a hermit just to stay aware of possible exploitation whether it be computer, social, financial, political, or otherwise?
To continue my metaphor (this is the parents checking on the kids when everything goes quiet): Your protests sound very similar to,"Nothing Dad. We're just reading." while carefully tucking something under the bed.