Re: [451] #80: Distinguishing intermediaries from origins

On 27/08/2015 1:41 p.m., Mark Nottingham wrote:
> 
>> On 27 Aug 2015, at 1:07 am, Tim Bray wrote:
>>
>> On Tue, Aug 25, 2015 at 8:57 AM, Poul-Henning Kamp wrote:
>> ​​>BUT, it would be useful to know where the legal blockage is happening.
>> ​​
>> ​​No argument there, but adding 452 doesn't aid that goal IMO.
>>
>> ​I agree. I don't think 452 really adds any useful information, because I think “origin host” vs “other” distinction is not very interesting.
> 
> Well, we do have responses from people who intend to consume these status codes that such a distinction would be interesting to them. 
> 

We have a lot of interest from us proxy people here in the WG for
consuming Transfer-Encoding:gzip from browsers a few years back. I'm
still not seeing it happen and the emitters are supposed to have a 6-12
week update cycle.

So I'm with PHK on this point. If the emitters are not clearly
signalling (pun intended, all meanings seem to apply) there is no point
in adding more status codes for them to use. The sub-header or payload
clarfication should be enough if they want/need it.

On Tims point about transparency reports:

> On 27/08/2015 3:07 a.m., Tim Bray wrote:
>> ​I'm pretty sure they would. Lots of ISPs hate it when they are prevented
>> from serving their customers properly. Also, see the transparency reports
>> published by all the big internet companies.​
>>
>> ​​

I think if they are the main (only?) ones willing to emit a status code
then 451 already serves it purpose by providing that. The other parties
are keeping silent and far more likey to lie when they do signal at all.



> I do see your point though — if I'm being censored because I'm in Fooistan, and the content is available elsewhere, the place of application of the censorship (network vs. origin) doesn't seem like a primary concern (because in both cases, changing my network path may result in the content becoming available).
> 
>> I think it's useful to know who is censoring.​
> 
> If we got ambitious, we could define a Censorship Reporting Format to describe who's doing the censorship, what it applies to, etc. and then Link: to that from the response. I don't think we're that ambitious here (and it's starting to sound out of scope for this WG).
> 

This is also what I have been having in mind. But is also something
*they* (the censors, emitters and consumers of 451) can define between
themselves without us HTTP people needing to be directly involved with
wrangling political/legal definitions.


> So, I think what remains is "is there any dead-simple metadata we can put into the 451 response that will help people collecting information about censorship? If not, we should probably just ship it.
> 

I think the answer to that is clearly "No". Ship it.

Amos

Received on Thursday, 27 August 2015 04:49:23 UTC