> When URL based session is used, this feature should be
> disabled as pages are cached by browsers.

OK, I suppose, but that seems to be an edgier case than what we're
already discussing.

> BTW, if connection is unstable and an app force user to logout,
> is it going to be a problem? It would depend on message displayed, but
> I guess users think it is due to unstable connection. 

I definitely (!!!) would not think that if an app forced me to log in
again that it had to do with my connection quality unless I had
already decided the connection was practically unusable -- and that
all bets were off as to whether anything would work as expected.

Even if I intuited the reason and/or was told about it, I would not
accept being logged out of an app because I went into an elevator (to
use Tjerk's point) or through a train tunnel as appropriate. At all.
You're basically adding insult to injury: not only do you have a bad
connection, but you need to always log in. Makes for a very, very bad
user experience. I would hate an app that did that to me... if I
encountered the situation.

And what I was interrogating is _how common_ such a situation would be
in each developer's real world, predicting it would be different based
on the ecosystem of a particular app + its users.

For example, my main app is too heavy for most people to use over 3G
connections, period, so they are unlikely to run into the problem with
us because they wouldn't be trying to use the site in the first place.

Other apps have a lightweight version that is otherwise usable over
slow/sporadic connections and thus its users are more likely to
encounter timeouts, which the app has previously been tolerating. This
why I referred to _the end-user_ (not _PHP users_) being able to turn
such a feature off. Only a site that is 100% sure that it only is
useable over WiFi/WAN/LAN should roll out such a feature without
giving users control, because otherwise you are _ensuring_ your site
won't work on 3G! Why would you do that if it used to work?

> If mobile apps are native, almost all apps store username/password
> or some credential that automatically reconnect to service.

Native apps can have different levels of resilience -- we MUST
consider sites that just happen to be accessed from mobile. And in
those cases there can't be any question that being logged out because
you didn't receive the updated id is not acceptable. The question is
only _how often_ you are pissing off users, not _whether_ you will
piss off a user when you do this.

I also want to know how you deal with the other insult-to-injury that
I mentioned, where logging out someone after a _real_ session hijack
then reveals their credentials to the attacker who's still listening
on the same network. I'm starting to think there are unintended
consequences here that are approaching "considered harmful" levels.

-- S.


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