Re: [css3-webfonts] Downloaded fonts should not...

L. David Baron wrote:
> On Wednesday 2008-04-09 17:00 +0100, Dave Crossland wrote:
>> "Downloaded fonts should not be made available to other applications."
>> - http://www.w3.org/TR/2002/WD-css3-webfonts-20020802/
>>
>> Could someone explain what this means in a technical way for a browser
>> developer implementing css3-webfonts?
> 
> I'm not quite sure what you mean by "in a technical way".  But I can
> give some reasons it might be a bad idea for a downloaded font to be
> used accidentally by another Web page or application:
> 
>   * the font might be in a highly unusual style that you wouldn't
> want picked up by other content because it makes it hard to read
> 
>   * the font might use an encoding hack where it encodes glyphs that
> represent other characters at the codeponts for commonly-used
> characters.  (This was a common use for downloadable font
> implementations in Netscape 4, particularly by Web pages in South
> Asian languages.  It has also been used for fonts containing various
> types of symbols or pictures.)  If such a font were picked up by
> other applications, or even other Web pages, it would make them
> illegible.
> 
>   * the font might be a malicious font designed to make the text in
> a particular other Web page say something other than what it
> actually says.

Add to that

   * the font might be subsetted for that particular page/website, leaving
   lots of missing glyphs when used for other content

~fantasai

Received on Thursday, 10 April 2008 09:16:43 UTC