RE: New Status Code -- 2xx Greedy Hotel?

I'm not sure why a 403 isn't appropriate (or at least more appropriate for 409) for this case?

In my mind, the much more interesting question is how to handle a HTTPS connection in this scenario.  The hotel never provides a certificate which correctly validates (since they can't get a wildcard certificate that matches every link the user might choose to initially visit).   The resulting certificate name mismatch leads to error dialogs, failed navigations, etc.

Eric Lawrence
Program Manager
Internet Explorer Networking

-----Original Message-----
From: ietf-http-wg-request@w3.org [mailto:ietf-http-wg-request@w3.org] On Behalf Of Mark Nottingham
Sent: Thursday, March 15, 2007 6:48 AM
To: ietf-http-wg@w3.org Group
Subject: New Status Code -- 2xx Greedy Hotel?


After being in hotels for a few weeks, I'm starting to wonder whether
a new 2xx HTTP status code could be defined whose semantic is "This
isn't what you asked for, but here's some information about how to
get network access so you can eventually get it."

2xx so that browsers will display it. AFAICT, they do; or at least,
Safari and Firefox do (see <http://www.mnot.net/test/222.asis>). IE?
4xx might be more appropriate, but I despair of "friendly" error
messages. (thought they could be padded, I suppose).

A new status code so that feed aggregators, automated clients, etc.
can differentiate what they asked for from your hotel / conference
centre / etc. asking for cash in order to get network access, and not
get horribly messed up as a result.

It would also be useful in those cases where you get redirected
somewhere to login and get a cookie for authentication; e.g., Yahoo!,
Google, Amazon, etc. Same situation, but slightly different use case.

Thoughts?

--
Mark Nottingham     http://www.mnot.net/

Received on Thursday, 15 March 2007 16:22:25 UTC