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This may be an unpopular sentiment, but here goes. The hyperbole over this kind of reasoning threatens the very fabric of the Web. Snowden did the world a serv

This may be an unpopular sentiment, but here goes. The hyperbole over this kind of reasoning threatens the very fabric of the Web. Snowden did the world a service in revealing all of the NSA hacking going on, but the paranoia that is resulting from this is breaking the original spirit of the Web. It is, after all, a Web of links, and those links were intended to be not just between siloed content, but between different sites owned by different people. Links by their nature, permit tracking. All you need for for sites to pool their web logs and collude, you don't even necessarily need fancy JS tracking. When Web 2.0 was ushered in, there was an early euphoria in the community, of everyone offering transparent data and APIs to their sites, and people being able to easily compose content and services between multiple actors to make new sites and services. It is one of the things that makes the Web better than native -- the ability to compose parts of the Web. No need for stuff like OpenDoc, or other notions of document composition, all you need are URLs and semantic elements that import or interface with external resources. In the pursuit of paranoia levels of "privacy", what will we lose? Will we balkanize everything into content silos? I'm not against trying to make things more "private by design", e.g., proxying to scrub requestors before the CDN sees the hit, or replicating resources locally. But if we take this to the extreme, we end up making local copies of everything, and the Web loses some of the semantic information from it's graph that I think is valuable to retain.

majika 12y ago
And here we see the contempt for privacy that some employees of Google hold. What would you regard as private, pray tell, if it's not being able to access a web page without telling Google (and other advertizing companies) that you're doing so? You regard a pursuit for that freedom as "paranoid"? Linking is the great power of the Web, and is why it is what it is today. That's all. Scripting is sometimes useful, but more often than not, it's used to enable an industry of services-as-software-substitutes ([1]) to thrive. Cross-site resource requests are not important or valuable (I think they're detrimental), and they are totally replaceable anyway, as you mentioned. As HTTP2 becomes more commonplace, cross-site requests will be replaced in favor of same-site requests. I look forward to that. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...
- dewitt 12y ago
  Oh come on, that first sentence is uncalled for. Cromwellian (while awesome, and someone who never fails to impress me with his writing) is not speaking for Google, or even other Googlers. He is speaking for himself. As is his right, I'd hope you'd agree, even if you (like many) would disagree with some of the things he writes. (Edit: you changed the first sentence. Which reads better, thank you. Though I would actually still make the case it's far less contemptuous regarding privacy than you suggest. Worth reading deeply, since I think what he is saying is nuanced.)
  - majika 12y ago
    My first sentence does not imply that he's speaking for Google, or other Google employees. cromwellian is an employee of Google, and I would regard his opinion here as being contemptuous of privacy. Edit: okay, I see the implication now of me referring to all Google employees in that sentence. I had intended for the plural to refer to "more than one", which I think is a safe bet - but it could also be construed as referring to "all" employees. I've qualified the sentence with "some".
    - mbreese 12y ago
      >>> And here we see the contempt for privacy that employees of Google hold Um... yes it did. You're trying to portray all of the employees of Google as being against privacy, and that's just simply not the case. Besides that, the argument cromwellian was making is hardly unique to Googlers.
- cromwellian 12y ago
  I've held this basic view of the Web far longer than I've been a Google employee (http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2008/05/decentralizing-web.html http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2008/05/decentralizing-web.htm...) I wrote one of the first anonymizing proxy servers for the Web (http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1996/02/msg00885.html http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1996/02/msg00885.html) which was later referenced by others (Ian Goldberg references it here: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/privacy-compcon97-www/privacy-html.html http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/privacy-compcon97-www...) In the early days of Cypherpunks, I collaborated with Hal Finney, one of the founders of the technology behind BitCoin (http://cryptome.org/2014/09/hal-finney-cpunks-1992.htm http://cryptome.org/2014/09/hal-finney-cpunks-1992.htm) In fact, I sold a startup in 2000 that was based on HashCash, the forerunner to Reliable Proof Of Work/Blockchain. I wrote one of the first Shamir sharing utilities for Unix, Cryptosplit. I authored one of the first Remailer 2.0 proposals on Cypherpunks, on ways of networks of PGP remailers to defeat traffic analysis. I wrote an anonymous forwarding, and later, a double blind anonymous mailing list software where neither the recipients of the list are known, nor the address of the mailing list itself. (http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1993/09/msg00509.html http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1993/09/msg00509.html) I have been involved in cryptography and privacy since the mid 90s and I care deeply about it. But I am not an extremist. Just like I believe in capitalism, but I am not a libertarian/Objectivist/anarcho-capitalist, and I tend towards progressivism and regulation as reasonable requirements. There is a fundamental tension between transparency and privacy. We are heading into a scary world where the cost of cameras, microphones, and networking is going to zero, and the size is tending to zero. That means tracking will be cheap and ubiquitous. We will need to find a way of dealing with the implications of this, without going to live in a log cabin in the woods. Some of that is technological, some of it will be political/legal, and some of it will be cultural. I love the Web, it's the greatest human invention since the printing press, but I fear for the balkanization of it, and the Internet. We need to tread carefully and not go overboard in being reactionary, lest we hurt the thing we love. This is not being "contempuous" of privacy. It's considering the tradeoffs, looking at the threat model, and looking at the cost/benefits of various levels of privacy protection, all the way from "none" to "perfect privacy", and what the repercussions of that might be.
MichaelGG 12y ago
A simple "noreferrer" (or referer if you like) tag on elements or in pages would solve a lot of this. 3rd parties would obviously still get the request, but they wouldn't know what page it comes from. Interesting that "norel" got adopted so quickly for spam. So it shouldn't be hard to have a "noreferrer" tag added, right? Yes, users can install addons to modify header behaviour, but site designers should be able to use third parties without disclosing things, too. Not just privacy, but security. Currently, apps need to implement a bouncer page to hide sensitive referrers.
- cromwellian 12y ago
  I like this proposal. Although as you say, it only cuts the direct link between the site and the resource.
- petercooper 12y ago
  So it shouldn't be hard to have a "noreferrer" tag added, right? It's so not hard that it's actually already a part of HTML5 and supported by several browsers :-) http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/links.html#rel-noreferrer http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/links.html#rel-noreferrer
  - MichaelGG 12y ago
    Seems like it isn't on link, image, or script elements though, which is the way most third party content gets loaded.
pascalculator 12y ago
cromwellian, you are not alone in this. I have been using CDNs for years and now, all of a sudden, they are deemed the root of all evil? I get it though, digital fingerprinting, heartbleed attacks, superfish, those are some serious privacy issues. But this blogpost? It feels like the whole debate about not implementing socialism because it allows for a small percentage of people to abuse the system. What about the amount of energy saved by using a CDN, the decrease in latency, the browser support? Doesn't that count for anything? This is a serious question: What damage does Google Fonts do to the users visiting my website using these CDNs and does it outweigh the benefits? Why should I take this "Hey, CDNs can deliver JS and therefor are able serve customized code, which theoretically means they are spying on us" seriously? More and more am I starting to believe this privacy thing is turning into mass hysteria and it's being cleverly spinned by some organizations in order to gain traction. Maybe am I missing the point and if so, please, enlighten me.
userbinator 12y ago
While I agree with your argument regarding the paranoia, I think what bothers users the most is that this is not just some random site, but Google that the resources are coming from. Understandably, there are users who would prefer to have much less Google in their online experience.

majika 12y ago

And here we see the contempt for privacy that some employees of Google hold. What would you regard as private, pray tell, if it's not being able to access a web page without telling Google (and other advertizing companies) that you're doing so? You regard a pursuit for that freedom as "paranoid"? Linking is the great power of the Web, and is why it is what it is today. That's all. Scripting is sometimes useful, but more often than not, it's used to enable an industry of services-as-software-substitutes ([1]) to thrive. Cross-site resource requests are not important or valuable (I think they're detrimental), and they are totally replaceable anyway, as you mentioned. As HTTP2 becomes more commonplace, cross-site requests will be replaced in favor of same-site requests. I look forward to that. [1]: https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-serve.html https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/who-does-that-server-really-s...

dewitt 12y ago
Oh come on, that first sentence is uncalled for. Cromwellian (while awesome, and someone who never fails to impress me with his writing) is not speaking for Google, or even other Googlers. He is speaking for himself. As is his right, I'd hope you'd agree, even if you (like many) would disagree with some of the things he writes. (Edit: you changed the first sentence. Which reads better, thank you. Though I would actually still make the case it's far less contemptuous regarding privacy than you suggest. Worth reading deeply, since I think what he is saying is nuanced.)
- majika 12y ago
  My first sentence does not imply that he's speaking for Google, or other Google employees. cromwellian is an employee of Google, and I would regard his opinion here as being contemptuous of privacy. Edit: okay, I see the implication now of me referring to all Google employees in that sentence. I had intended for the plural to refer to "more than one", which I think is a safe bet - but it could also be construed as referring to "all" employees. I've qualified the sentence with "some".
  - mbreese 12y ago
    >>> And here we see the contempt for privacy that employees of Google hold Um... yes it did. You're trying to portray all of the employees of Google as being against privacy, and that's just simply not the case. Besides that, the argument cromwellian was making is hardly unique to Googlers.
cromwellian 12y ago
I've held this basic view of the Web far longer than I've been a Google employee (http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2008/05/decentralizing-web.html http://timepedia.blogspot.com/2008/05/decentralizing-web.htm...) I wrote one of the first anonymizing proxy servers for the Web (http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1996/02/msg00885.html http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1996/02/msg00885.html) which was later referenced by others (Ian Goldberg references it here: http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/privacy-compcon97-www/privacy-html.html http://www.cs.berkeley.edu/~daw/papers/privacy-compcon97-www...) In the early days of Cypherpunks, I collaborated with Hal Finney, one of the founders of the technology behind BitCoin (http://cryptome.org/2014/09/hal-finney-cpunks-1992.htm http://cryptome.org/2014/09/hal-finney-cpunks-1992.htm) In fact, I sold a startup in 2000 that was based on HashCash, the forerunner to Reliable Proof Of Work/Blockchain. I wrote one of the first Shamir sharing utilities for Unix, Cryptosplit. I authored one of the first Remailer 2.0 proposals on Cypherpunks, on ways of networks of PGP remailers to defeat traffic analysis. I wrote an anonymous forwarding, and later, a double blind anonymous mailing list software where neither the recipients of the list are known, nor the address of the mailing list itself. (http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1993/09/msg00509.html http://cypherpunks.venona.com/archive/1993/09/msg00509.html) I have been involved in cryptography and privacy since the mid 90s and I care deeply about it. But I am not an extremist. Just like I believe in capitalism, but I am not a libertarian/Objectivist/anarcho-capitalist, and I tend towards progressivism and regulation as reasonable requirements. There is a fundamental tension between transparency and privacy. We are heading into a scary world where the cost of cameras, microphones, and networking is going to zero, and the size is tending to zero. That means tracking will be cheap and ubiquitous. We will need to find a way of dealing with the implications of this, without going to live in a log cabin in the woods. Some of that is technological, some of it will be political/legal, and some of it will be cultural. I love the Web, it's the greatest human invention since the printing press, but I fear for the balkanization of it, and the Internet. We need to tread carefully and not go overboard in being reactionary, lest we hurt the thing we love. This is not being "contempuous" of privacy. It's considering the tradeoffs, looking at the threat model, and looking at the cost/benefits of various levels of privacy protection, all the way from "none" to "perfect privacy", and what the repercussions of that might be.

MichaelGG 12y ago

A simple "noreferrer" (or referer if you like) tag on elements or in pages would solve a lot of this. 3rd parties would obviously still get the request, but they wouldn't know what page it comes from. Interesting that "norel" got adopted so quickly for spam. So it shouldn't be hard to have a "noreferrer" tag added, right? Yes, users can install addons to modify header behaviour, but site designers should be able to use third parties without disclosing things, too. Not just privacy, but security. Currently, apps need to implement a bouncer page to hide sensitive referrers.

cromwellian 12y ago
I like this proposal. Although as you say, it only cuts the direct link between the site and the resource.
petercooper 12y ago
So it shouldn't be hard to have a "noreferrer" tag added, right? It's so not hard that it's actually already a part of HTML5 and supported by several browsers :-) http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/links.html#rel-noreferrer http://www.w3.org/TR/html5/links.html#rel-noreferrer
- MichaelGG 12y ago
  Seems like it isn't on link, image, or script elements though, which is the way most third party content gets loaded.

pascalculator 12y ago

cromwellian, you are not alone in this. I have been using CDNs for years and now, all of a sudden, they are deemed the root of all evil? I get it though, digital fingerprinting, heartbleed attacks, superfish, those are some serious privacy issues. But this blogpost? It feels like the whole debate about not implementing socialism because it allows for a small percentage of people to abuse the system. What about the amount of energy saved by using a CDN, the decrease in latency, the browser support? Doesn't that count for anything? This is a serious question: What damage does Google Fonts do to the users visiting my website using these CDNs and does it outweigh the benefits? Why should I take this "Hey, CDNs can deliver JS and therefor are able serve customized code, which theoretically means they are spying on us" seriously? More and more am I starting to believe this privacy thing is turning into mass hysteria and it's being cleverly spinned by some organizations in order to gain traction. Maybe am I missing the point and if so, please, enlighten me.

userbinator 12y ago

While I agree with your argument regarding the paranoia, I think what bothers users the most is that this is not just some random site, but Google that the resources are coming from. Understandably, there are users who would prefer to have much less Google in their online experience.