Re: Re: Start -> Shut Down -> Log Out

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From: peter (Peter da Silva)
Subject: Re: Re: Start -> Shut Down -> Log Out
Date: 18:50 on 13 Jul 2006
>    "If and only if the media type is not given by a Content-Type field, the
>    recipient MAY attempt to guess the media type via inspection of its
>    content and/or the name extension(s) of the URI used to identify the
>    resource." (RFC 2616)

> Software that ignores this, and decides to sniff instead, is hateful.

The interaction between this and operating system "helper command" bindings
is additionally hateful.

I really really wish the RFCs included something like:

"The browser MUST NOT use helper applications provided for the command line
 or GUI shell to open documents, but MUST maintain its own database of
 applications that are intended to be used for safely displaying untrusted
 files. These applications MUST NOT in turn violate this restriction.

"The browser MUST NOT permit untrusted content to request unsafe operations,
 with or without approval by the user. In particular, installation of
 software, plugins, and extensions MUST be initiated by a mechanism not
 available inside the browser's sandbox.

"These rules MUST apply regardless of the location or authentication tokens
 provided by the displayed content. Applications that need to grant more rights
 to a document they are providing than are available in the sandbox MUST
 install a plugin or extension to perform these tasks in an instance of the
 browser under their control. It MUST NOT be possible for the user to use
 this instance to open an arbitary URL except by passing that URL to an
 instance of the browser that is known not to contain the unsafe extension."

There's stuff above here

Generated at 23:01 on 05 Dec 2006 by mariachi 0.52