- From: Roman Ali <roman.ali@ntlworld.com>
- Date: Sat, 02 Oct 2004 10:57:03 -0500
- To: <site-comments@w3.org>
- Message-ID: <000001c4a864$5f382ed0$1fb20252@ROMANSDESKTOP>
To whom it may concern, My name is Roman Ali and I am a second-year undergraduate computer science student at the University of Manchester. I am a technology enthusiast, and therefore happened to be browsing your website for no particular reason other than to learn a bit more about Web development. Anyway, recently I had clicked on one of your “valid XHTML” links (found at the bottom of most of your Web pages) and found that some of these pages did not actually validate. This seemed somewhat ironic, and amusing, for a person such as myself, considering the fact that the World Wide Web Consortium is considered to be the world authority of Web development. I let you know of this via email. Today I clicked on one of these pages again and was pleased to see that it did validate. However, the results page (which says the referring page has validated) also had a link to validate it (i.e. to validate the result’s page). The result’s page arising from that also had a link in the same fashion. This trend continued for all the results pages I received. It occurred to me that this could negatively affect your systems IF you have not anticipated this in advance, and have not pre-emptively put in measures to deal with such a situation. You probably have put in any necessary measures to deal with such a situation, but I felt obliged to express my opinions just in case you hadn’t. I am sure you have understood what I have said, but in case I have not been clear enough, I shall give an example below. If I click on the “valid XHTML 1.0” link at the bottom of the page located at: HYPERLINK "http://validator.w3.org/"http://validator.w3.org/ I receive the following results page: HYPERLINK "http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fvalidator.w3.org%2F"http ://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fvalidator.w3.org%2F If I then click on the “valid XHTML 1.0” link at the bottom of the results page I have just received, I receive another results page: HYPERLINK "http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fvalidator.w3.org%2Fcheck %3Furi%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fvalidator.w3.org%252F"http://validator.w3.or g/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fvalidator.w3.org%2Fcheck%3Furi%3Dhttp%253A%252F %252Fvalidator.w3.org%252F If I then click on the “valid XHTML 1.0” link at the bottom of this new results page I have just received, I receive another results page: HYPERLINK "http://validator.w3.org/check?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fvalidator.w3.org%2Fcheck %3Furi%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fvalidator.w3.org%252Fcheck%253Furi%253Dhttp% 25253A%25252F%25252Fvalidator.w3.org%25252F"http://validator.w3.org/chec k?uri=http%3A%2F%2Fvalidator.w3.org%2Fcheck%3Furi%3Dhttp%253A%252F%252Fv alidator.w3.org%252Fcheck%253Furi%253Dhttp%25253A%25252F%25252Fvalidator ..w3.org%25252F - and the trend continues. In my opinion, if some malicious person, or someone who isn’t malicious but ignorant, keeps continuing to click on the “valid XHTML 1.0” links found on the results pages of validations he/she has carried out in an iterative manner, the long addresses generated by such validations could possibly negatively affect your systems and/or their browser. This is not a professional opinion as I am a student at the moment with limited knowledge. I would appreciate it very much if you would kindly let me know whether the opinion I have expressed is true or not. I ask for this just so that I may increase my knowledge even further. Thank you. Yours faithfully Roman Ali. --- Outgoing mail is certified Virus Free. Checked by AVG anti-virus system (http://www.grisoft.com). Version: 6.0.771 / Virus Database: 518 - Release Date: 28/09/2004
Received on Saturday, 2 October 2004 15:57:50 UTC