5 ms·

While you somewhat correct, in that the browser sends the request, but it is not a 'can be downloaded' but rather an imperative saying 'get that font from that

While you somewhat correct, in that the browser sends the request, but it is not a 'can be downloaded' but rather an imperative saying 'get that font from that server'. In the end, the w3c standards define, that browsers execute the commands they receive from the server and in this case, the server tells the browser to download the font. So the site-owner configures his website in a way, that this site instructs browser to share the IP address.

marcus_cemes 5y ago
> the w3c standards define, that browsers execute the commands they receive from the server I'm no expert in the matter, but this seems a little convoluted to me? To me, the server does not issue instructions, per se, it returns a declarative text/binary response that describes the sturcture of the website, it is then up to the browser, that the user installed and chooses to use and may configure (and possibly configure to leak their data, even if spec-adhering behaviour of rendering the webpage should not), to attempt to understand the document and retrieve any other resources that may assist displaying the content correctly. On the other hand, if one was to send CPU instructions back to the user, I guess it's also there choice to execute them...? Also, it's not possible to determine which resources are for display purposes (fonts), and which are for tracking purposes, the browser will blindly have to retrieve the resource, so websites have a certain responsibility to issue privacy-respecting "instructions". I'm trying to argue both sides here, I still believe that the user chooses voluntarily to use the browser, visit the webpage and therefore parse the document and initiate any subsequent requests that the document proposes, on the other hand, this is beyond most people, they just want to view a frickin' website, so perhaps the lives of web developers should be made harder to make the lives of the average Joe, who is not an IT expert, a little easier? The architecture of the web is inherently not privacy-respecting, in order to save bandwidth (and for sake of simplicity), we only send fragments and let the browser choose what else it needs, which can be tracked. It's like walking in a park. You choose to show your face to people, we've come to just accept the fact that by the laws of nature, we cannot prevent other people from seeing our face (unless you use a mask, but then you make them very uneasy), we leak data that others can remember and use to identify us later.
- ryandrake 5y ago
  Try making this argument with compiled code instead of HTML: "The company included the code to do $BAD_THING in the binary executable, but it was the user's choice to run it, and he could have easily modified the binary to ignore $BAD_THING, but didn't. Therefore, it was the user doing $BAD_THING, not the company." A lot of people in this discussion are splitting hairs here, trying to blame the user or the browser. The technical details of what a browser does are less important than the end effect: Fundamentally, the web developer added "stuff" to the HTML, knowing that this "stuff" will cause most browsers in the field to access these fonts on another computer. The fact that the end user could technically block it, doesn't change the developer's intent.
  - marcus_cemes 5y ago
    Yeah, I guess this stands. But HTML is not executable. It has to be parsed, like words in a book, not chemicals in a tube. Who is liable, the person who creates the poison, or the book (encyclopedia) which describes the process (and therefore the person who wrote it/distributes it)? Again, I'm not saying what is right and wrong, but I think this issue is fundamentally much, much more complex than the court may have thought, and more importantly, may have repercussions on almost every website out there.
    - dsr_ 5y ago
      In your paradigm: shell, Python, Ruby and Java programs are not executable either, since they require interpreters before they become machine code. Java calls this bytecode and wants to run on a whole JVM, which is rather like a browser.
    - ryandrake 5y ago
      > Yeah, I guess this stands. But HTML is not executable. It has to be parsed, like words in a book, not chemicals in a tube. Who is liable, the person who creates the poison, or the book (encyclopedia) which describes the process (and therefore the person who wrote it/distributes it)? I know as soon as you typed this, you probably thought "oh crap, what about Python?" so I won't go there. I think the major underlying thing here that makes developers uncomfortable with this court ruling is that the whole industry of software development has a chronic and pervasive problem with the idea of consent. I'm not saying individual software engineers don't know what consent means, but we constantly put out software that does things without giving the user informed consent and control, and resist all efforts to force us to ask for this consent. Imagine trying to use the Software Industry's idea of consent when dating: "Hey, Alice, do you want to go out on a date with me? I'll only accept the answers [Yes] or [Ask me again later]". Ridiculous! But software regularly does this! "Hey, Bob, I love you and I'm going to keep sending you text messages. Do you want [all my text messages] or [only essential text messages]?" Ridiculous, but look at the "consent" options when it comes to cookies. Not to be crass, but when software wants to get users to do something, they need to treat it as if the software is trying to get laid: You need to ask for, and receive, informed consent at every step of the way, at every new and different request. This is an uncomfortable idea to developers who are used to just commanding the code to do things.
discardable_dan 5y ago
This is the essence of CDNs, though. Every offsite CDN is subject to this same ruling, meaning any developer trying to use a third-party CDN for something as simply as loading jQuery is subject to this. For example, on load, https://evanandkatelyn.com/ https://evanandkatelyn.com/ grabs stuff from: twitch.tv (embedded player), youtube.com (embedded player), facebook.com (likely just a like button), and what I assume are several wordpress CDNs (c0.wp.com, i0.wp.com, s.w.org, ssl.p.jwpcdn.com). If this ruling is upheld, either (a) browsers need to immediately stop interpreting these commands, instead providing user prompts for _each offsite load event_, or (b) a very large swath of websites are all open to the same legal issue. As a small example, the Aesop wine company site (https://www.aesopwines.com/ https://www.aesopwines.com/), made with Squarespace, uses typekit, squarespace, and google CDN loads. They're subject to the same ruling, right? And so on, and so on...
- dannyw 5y ago
  Then get Squarespace to stop pinging random third parties on page load. The website owner is paying for Squarespace, why is it loading Google CDN (and Google trackers?)
  - discardable_dan 5y ago
    It's loading fonts. So squarespace needs to host those fonts, fine. But more to the point, it could be argued even the Squarespace CDN is "different" from the actual website, so we need CDN shims that forward local domain requests to the CDNs and return the results. All to hide an IP number for downloading fonts." Moreover, "host it yourself" is easy if you're technically skilled, but very, very difficult if you aren't.
    - krono 5y ago
      Technical skill is kind of a requirement if you want to achieve something that's technical by nature - such as website development or web hosting. And hosting a font file entails dumping it next to your index.html file and adding some very basic CSS. Not exactly difficult.
cryptime 5y ago
This is called plausible deniability- the site owner knows what he is doing, but does not care. He could have downloaded the font or used a analytic service which does not collect IP address. Great ruling.

marcus_cemes 5y ago

> the w3c standards define, that browsers execute the commands they receive from the server I'm no expert in the matter, but this seems a little convoluted to me? To me, the server does not issue instructions, per se, it returns a declarative text/binary response that describes the sturcture of the website, it is then up to the browser, that the user installed and chooses to use and may configure (and possibly configure to leak their data, even if spec-adhering behaviour of rendering the webpage should not), to attempt to understand the document and retrieve any other resources that may assist displaying the content correctly. On the other hand, if one was to send CPU instructions back to the user, I guess it's also there choice to execute them...? Also, it's not possible to determine which resources are for display purposes (fonts), and which are for tracking purposes, the browser will blindly have to retrieve the resource, so websites have a certain responsibility to issue privacy-respecting "instructions". I'm trying to argue both sides here, I still believe that the user chooses voluntarily to use the browser, visit the webpage and therefore parse the document and initiate any subsequent requests that the document proposes, on the other hand, this is beyond most people, they just want to view a frickin' website, so perhaps the lives of web developers should be made harder to make the lives of the average Joe, who is not an IT expert, a little easier? The architecture of the web is inherently not privacy-respecting, in order to save bandwidth (and for sake of simplicity), we only send fragments and let the browser choose what else it needs, which can be tracked. It's like walking in a park. You choose to show your face to people, we've come to just accept the fact that by the laws of nature, we cannot prevent other people from seeing our face (unless you use a mask, but then you make them very uneasy), we leak data that others can remember and use to identify us later.

ryandrake 5y ago
Try making this argument with compiled code instead of HTML: "The company included the code to do $BAD_THING in the binary executable, but it was the user's choice to run it, and he could have easily modified the binary to ignore $BAD_THING, but didn't. Therefore, it was the user doing $BAD_THING, not the company." A lot of people in this discussion are splitting hairs here, trying to blame the user or the browser. The technical details of what a browser does are less important than the end effect: Fundamentally, the web developer added "stuff" to the HTML, knowing that this "stuff" will cause most browsers in the field to access these fonts on another computer. The fact that the end user could technically block it, doesn't change the developer's intent.
- marcus_cemes 5y ago
  Yeah, I guess this stands. But HTML is not executable. It has to be parsed, like words in a book, not chemicals in a tube. Who is liable, the person who creates the poison, or the book (encyclopedia) which describes the process (and therefore the person who wrote it/distributes it)? Again, I'm not saying what is right and wrong, but I think this issue is fundamentally much, much more complex than the court may have thought, and more importantly, may have repercussions on almost every website out there.
  - dsr_ 5y ago
    In your paradigm: shell, Python, Ruby and Java programs are not executable either, since they require interpreters before they become machine code. Java calls this bytecode and wants to run on a whole JVM, which is rather like a browser.
  - ryandrake 5y ago
    > Yeah, I guess this stands. But HTML is not executable. It has to be parsed, like words in a book, not chemicals in a tube. Who is liable, the person who creates the poison, or the book (encyclopedia) which describes the process (and therefore the person who wrote it/distributes it)? I know as soon as you typed this, you probably thought "oh crap, what about Python?" so I won't go there. I think the major underlying thing here that makes developers uncomfortable with this court ruling is that the whole industry of software development has a chronic and pervasive problem with the idea of consent. I'm not saying individual software engineers don't know what consent means, but we constantly put out software that does things without giving the user informed consent and control, and resist all efforts to force us to ask for this consent. Imagine trying to use the Software Industry's idea of consent when dating: "Hey, Alice, do you want to go out on a date with me? I'll only accept the answers [Yes] or [Ask me again later]". Ridiculous! But software regularly does this! "Hey, Bob, I love you and I'm going to keep sending you text messages. Do you want [all my text messages] or [only essential text messages]?" Ridiculous, but look at the "consent" options when it comes to cookies. Not to be crass, but when software wants to get users to do something, they need to treat it as if the software is trying to get laid: You need to ask for, and receive, informed consent at every step of the way, at every new and different request. This is an uncomfortable idea to developers who are used to just commanding the code to do things.

discardable_dan 5y ago

This is the essence of CDNs, though. Every offsite CDN is subject to this same ruling, meaning any developer trying to use a third-party CDN for something as simply as loading jQuery is subject to this. For example, on load, https://evanandkatelyn.com/ https://evanandkatelyn.com/ grabs stuff from: twitch.tv (embedded player), youtube.com (embedded player), facebook.com (likely just a like button), and what I assume are several wordpress CDNs (c0.wp.com, i0.wp.com, s.w.org, ssl.p.jwpcdn.com). If this ruling is upheld, either (a) browsers need to immediately stop interpreting these commands, instead providing user prompts for _each offsite load event_, or (b) a very large swath of websites are all open to the same legal issue. As a small example, the Aesop wine company site (https://www.aesopwines.com/ https://www.aesopwines.com/), made with Squarespace, uses typekit, squarespace, and google CDN loads. They're subject to the same ruling, right? And so on, and so on...

dannyw 5y ago
Then get Squarespace to stop pinging random third parties on page load. The website owner is paying for Squarespace, why is it loading Google CDN (and Google trackers?)
- discardable_dan 5y ago
  It's loading fonts. So squarespace needs to host those fonts, fine. But more to the point, it could be argued even the Squarespace CDN is "different" from the actual website, so we need CDN shims that forward local domain requests to the CDNs and return the results. All to hide an IP number for downloading fonts." Moreover, "host it yourself" is easy if you're technically skilled, but very, very difficult if you aren't.
  - krono 5y ago
    Technical skill is kind of a requirement if you want to achieve something that's technical by nature - such as website development or web hosting. And hosting a font file entails dumping it next to your index.html file and adding some very basic CSS. Not exactly difficult.

cryptime 5y ago

This is called plausible deniability- the site owner knows what he is doing, but does not care. He could have downloaded the font or used a analytic service which does not collect IP address. Great ruling.