3 ms·
Corporate firewalls are the general boogieman, but in reality, I haven't seen evidence that they're much more than that. To test this, we implemented fallback
by flatline3 14y ago
Corporate firewalls are the general boogieman, but in reality, I haven't seen evidence that they're much more than that.
To test this, we implemented fallback-to-HTTPS behavior in a very widely used previously non-HTTP client. We then observed the number of clients that failed to connect via our custom protocol, but succeeded in falling back to HTTPS.
The numbers were negligible.
It's ridiculous that we'd seriously believe that we can't trust that TCP works on the internet. We joke about it being the "interweb", but I see no reason to sow fear, uncertainty, and doubt, and thus and actually turn the interweb into reality.
- TazeTSchnitzel 14y agoPerhaps, but open wifi often only allows 443 and 80.
- flatline3 14y agoThat also breaks IMAP(S), SMTP(S), Jabber, AIM, and a slew of other applications. I don't see that we should model the internet architecture on bad technical choices made on a limited number of open wifi networks. Or, we just frame our standard protocol over websockets as an (unfortunate) fallback, if it ever is revealed to be a real problem.
- ynniv 14y agoPort numbers are not protocols.
- cdcarter 14y agoYes, but many open wifi hotspots at commercial institutions only have 80 and 443 open.
- flatline3 14y agoI believe his point is that you can generally carry whatever protocol you want over port 443 (and often port 80). Given how many other things are broken by networks that foolishly only open port 80 and 443, and their (in my experience) relative rarity, I'd suggest that it's not worth bothering with, except possibly as a fall-back to measure the actual number of people trying to use your service behind such a network.
- gizmo686 14y agoWho says port 80 has to be http?