Possible addition to file API

At present, the only way a web page can read a file's binary data via
the File API (http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/FileAPI) is if the person
reading the page enters the file name in an <input type="file"/>. The
API applies to only local files, if I read it correctly. Is it
possible to extend the spec to allow a script to read any file that
can been loaded as part of the HTML page, such as an <img/>? This
extension would let web pages read the EXIF data of an image that is
part of an <img> element; a very useful capability for web apps.
Similarly, you could access metadata from a file destined for an
<audio> or <video> element. The spec seems to suggest that this is
possible: http://dev.w3.org/2006/webapi/FileAPI/#url , but is it
implemented in any browsers?

I understand there are good security reasons for restricting file
reads; you don't want someone else's web page to be able to go
willy-nilly through your local hard disk and send all the information
back to the Bad Guys. But this scenario is different; if you have
loaded an <img/>, you must already have read permission for it, and
its data is there in the browser. I'm just asking to be able to access
its bits.

Precedent: think of <link rel="stylesheet" href="blah.css"/>; you have
access to all the elements in that file via the DOM, and there's no
security issue involved, even if it's a cross-domain href. That's
because it is *not* an arbitrary file on the user's local file system;
it's one that the author has explicitly specified and is allowed to
read.

I think my suggestion here meets the same criteria. Am I missing
something obvious on the security front?

The back story for this idea (you may safely skip this portion if you
are not interested): My brother and I have just spent the past few
days looking over several large boxes of photos that my mom had stored
away. Most of them had nothing written on the back, so we had no idea
of where or when the pictures were taken, nor who the people in them
were, nor what the picture meant to Mom. Obviously, "metadata
matters." This told me that I need to start using the "comments"
feature in GIMP to add descriptions to my photos.

A few days ago, some of our family got together and I told my cousin
George that I'm going to start doing this. He said that was nice, but
the only way to get the data out is to use a program similar to the
one that you used when editing the image, and most people won't have
that. So I thought, "You know, it would be great if you could get
access to an <img/>'s EXIF data from the browser."

Received on Sunday, 22 August 2010 04:07:38 UTC