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No. The burden needs to be on the user to understand their own security. If we stopped taking the burden out of user's hands and tried to ensure that everyone

by Endy 8y ago

No. The burden needs to be on the user to understand their own security. If we stopped taking the burden out of user's hands and tried to ensure that everyone on the Internet understood that anything they access becomes data on their computer/device, we'd have a smarter Internet. Frankly, I think if we made people understand that they have a responsibility to choose what they download, there might be more vocal group demanding the ability to do whatever they want with data transmitted to their computer, save for directly malicious acts against other users. The browser should be only two things: a client between a user and a server, passing information; and a parser which displays that information on the client-side. The moment a browser alone begins controlling what the user sees, or does not see, without the user having the ability to control it, we have a major problem. That becomes a security problem, a privacy problem, and a functionality problem. All data on the Internet should be treated the same by all browsers' client functions. The display may vary (e.g. the difference between Lynx and Firefox), but all data should be treated equally and the user should have both the authority and the responsibility for their own computer.

lucideer 8y ago
> The moment a browser alone begins controlling what the user sees, or does not see, without the user having the ability to control it, we have a major problem. What you're describing would be inordinately taxing for even the most experienced developer, not to mention the average internet user. The only way this could possibly be viable would be if we used gopher:// instead of http(s):// Currently, there are tools such as Privoxy Actions & Filters, which allow you to do 100% of what you're describing, Greasemonkey which allows you to do ~80% of what you describe, or uMatrix which allow you to do quite a lot. The prerequisites for using those range from full-blown programming skill (for the former 2) to managing a relatively advanced in-browser UI (for uMatrix), and having a lot of spare time. For every single webpage you visit on the web. This isn't viable for 99% of people.
- Endy 8y ago
  >The prerequisites for using [Privoxy & Greasemonkey] range from full-blown programming skill... Neither Privoxy nor GreaseMonkey require actual programming knowledge. I do not program, and I use Greasemonkey with some regularity - I use a combination of userscripts.org scripts and my own. They require a basic knowledge of specific scripting language implementations. Besides, Greasemonkey & uBlock/uMatrix both have a right-click menu entry that amounts to "hide anything like this". You're saying that 99% of the Internet's users can't handle being required to interact with the most basic front-end technologies which power the network they use every day, and which they willingly give up their private information to - thus having no ability to provide evidence for their trust or any expectation of their privacy. Frankly speaking, my mindset is that if it's not viable for them to understand it, it shouldn't be viable for them to use it. Uneducated users lead to nothing but trouble; and sure, I'll grant that I'm suggesting educating them the hard way, but I think the Web as a whole would be better off in the long run from smarter users and dumber clients. Heck, I think the whole world would be better off with smarter users and dumber clients/terminals/systems. Also, please, don't even begin to suggest that uneducated users should be directed to Gopher holes. You know as well as I do that if there's enough people going back to it, some yutz is gonna start trying to figure out how to add streaming this and scripted that to Gopher, and then Gopherspace will be ruined. And sure, on a technical level it would be a neat project to look at. But to reference Jurassic Park, a lot of very smart people have been so amazed at what they could do with the Web and the Internet as a whole, that they never really stopped to ask if they should do it.

by Endy 8y ago

lucideer 8y ago

> The moment a browser alone begins controlling what the user sees, or does not see, without the user having the ability to control it, we have a major problem. What you're describing would be inordinately taxing for even the most experienced developer, not to mention the average internet user. The only way this could possibly be viable would be if we used gopher:// instead of http(s):// Currently, there are tools such as Privoxy Actions & Filters, which allow you to do 100% of what you're describing, Greasemonkey which allows you to do ~80% of what you describe, or uMatrix which allow you to do quite a lot. The prerequisites for using those range from full-blown programming skill (for the former 2) to managing a relatively advanced in-browser UI (for uMatrix), and having a lot of spare time. For every single webpage you visit on the web. This isn't viable for 99% of people.

Endy 8y ago
>The prerequisites for using [Privoxy & Greasemonkey] range from full-blown programming skill... Neither Privoxy nor GreaseMonkey require actual programming knowledge. I do not program, and I use Greasemonkey with some regularity - I use a combination of userscripts.org scripts and my own. They require a basic knowledge of specific scripting language implementations. Besides, Greasemonkey & uBlock/uMatrix both have a right-click menu entry that amounts to "hide anything like this". You're saying that 99% of the Internet's users can't handle being required to interact with the most basic front-end technologies which power the network they use every day, and which they willingly give up their private information to - thus having no ability to provide evidence for their trust or any expectation of their privacy. Frankly speaking, my mindset is that if it's not viable for them to understand it, it shouldn't be viable for them to use it. Uneducated users lead to nothing but trouble; and sure, I'll grant that I'm suggesting educating them the hard way, but I think the Web as a whole would be better off in the long run from smarter users and dumber clients. Heck, I think the whole world would be better off with smarter users and dumber clients/terminals/systems. Also, please, don't even begin to suggest that uneducated users should be directed to Gopher holes. You know as well as I do that if there's enough people going back to it, some yutz is gonna start trying to figure out how to add streaming this and scripted that to Gopher, and then Gopherspace will be ruined. And sure, on a technical level it would be a neat project to look at. But to reference Jurassic Park, a lot of very smart people have been so amazed at what they could do with the Web and the Internet as a whole, that they never really stopped to ask if they should do it.