Re: [whatwg] Proposal: navigator.cores

On Sun, May 4, 2014 at 8:35 PM, Ian Hickson <ian@hixie.ch> wrote:

> On Sun, 4 May 2014, Adam Barth wrote:
> >
> > The world of computing has changed since 2009.  At that time, the iPhone
> > 3G had just been released and Apple hadn't even released the first iPad.
> >
> > The needs of the web as a platform have changed because now the web
> > faces stiff competition from other mobile application frameworks.
>
> I'm not arguing that we shouldn't provide solid APIs that allow authors to
> provide multi-core solutions. I'm arguing that when we do so, we should do
> so while protecting the privacy of users.
>

I feel a bit like I'm repeating myself, but I'll try to present my two
arguments again concisely:

1) There is no privacy issue today.  The only privacy concern people have
raise is in regards to fingerprinting.  Today, fingerprinting is already
possible with a high degree of accuracy regardless of navigator.cores.  The
fingerprinting concern with navigator.cores only degrades privacy in a
hypothetical future world in which we're removed all the existing
fingerprinting vectors in the platform.  I don't believe we'll ever live in
that world, and I'm no longer willing to withhold useful tools from
developer to keep that dream alive.

2) In 2009, as well as today, you've argued that we should hold out for a
better solution.  I agree that we should provide developers with a better
solution (e.g., something analogous to Grand Central Dispatch).  However, I
also believe we should provide developers with a worse solution [1], and
I'm sad that we didn't do that in 2009.  If we had provided developers with
a worse solution in 2009, they would be better off today.  Similarly,
developers will be better off if we provide navigator.cores today even if
we manage to ship a better solution sometime before 2019.

Adam

[1] http://www.jwz.org/doc/worse-is-better.html

Received on Monday, 5 May 2014 15:37:51 UTC