On Thursday 19 January 2006 22:20, Hadley Rich wrote:
> On Thursday 19 January 2006 18:34, Steve Holdoway wrote:
> > Volker Kuhlmann <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
> > > Someone pinch me please:
> >
> > Here's the story as linked from digg...
> >
> > http://weblogs.mozillazine.org/darin/archives/009594.html

I've read about half of the above. It may just be that I'm a bit naive 
about the matter, or that the bods writing in the blog are totally 
paranoid about their identities, but to be quite honest I'd really like to 
know what the real harm that can be done to the clients and their machines 
is?

As far as I have been able to tell so far, it looks like a pretty harmless 
way of getting usage info about one's site. Certainly a great deal nicer 
than some of the tricks I have heard about or using cookies in the less 
desirable ways.

OK. So the WWW Site operator can now find out who, and in these days of 
fixed IP numbers - exactly who -  has accessed his WWW pages accurately. 
Whoop-de-do. I suppose the paranoid will say that it's yet another thorn 
ready to prick the balloon of privacy in which we like to think we can 
hide. I've got news for you: You cannot hide on the 'Net.
 
Given that somebody who is operating a WWW site finds that some record of 
the visitors is a very nice thing to know, I'd say that overall this 
mechanism has more benefits than horrors.

I mean - getting real for a moment - it's not going to suddenly enable GWB 
et al to make terrorist attacks on us is it?

> Ug. That doesn't sound nice at all.
>
> I must confess that I routinely put redirects in links to track clicks
> when I am asked to by clients, but this is something else. At least with
> redirects the end user can see the URL in the status bar and decide not
> to click it, or copy and paste or whatever.
>
> I'm glad I use Konqueror at this stage, let's hope it doesn't make it
> way in there.
>
> hads

-- 
CS

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