W3C Group Proposed To Safeguard User Agent State Privacy 76
First time accepted submitter FredAndrews writes "A Private User Agent W3C Community Group has been proposed to tackle the privacy of the web browser by developing technical solutions to close the leaks. Current Javascript APIs are capable of leaking a lot of information as we browse the Internet, such as details of our browser that can be used to identify and track our online presence, and the content on the page (including any private customizations and the effects of extensions), and can monitor and leak our usage on the page such a mouse movements and interactions on the page. This problem is compounded by the increased use of the web browser as a platform for delivering software. While the community ignores the issue, solutions are being developed commercially and patented — we run the risk of ending up unable to have privacy because the solutions are patented. The proposed W3C PUA CG proposes to address the problem with technical solutions at the web browser, such as restricting the back channels available to Javascript, and also by proposing HTML extensions to mitigate lost functionality. Note, this work cannot address the privacy of information that we overtly share, and there are other current W3C initiatives working on this, such as DNT."
Re:An even better idea. (Score:4, Interesting)
Do away with the patent system. Get rid of copyright while you're at it.
A non-renewable copyright of five to ten years, which is valid only if owned by a natural (living, breathing, non-corporate) person, and becomes fully public domain at expiration... that might not be such a bad thing.
Re:An even better idea. (Score:4, Interesting)
The costs of patent litigation exceed their investment value in all industries except chemistry and pharmaceuticals.
Bessen, James & Meurer, Michael J. (2008) Patent Failure. Princeton University Press.
So it would make sense to abolish patents in all other areas.
The economically optimal copyright length, assuming a single flat term, is slightly less than 15 years
Pollock, Rufus (2009) Forever Minus a Day? Calculating Optimal Copyright Term.
I think it might be better to have a shorter copyright term followed by a further copyleft term though.
Re:Translation... (Score:4, Interesting)
Ohhh, yeah, sure. It's just that simple. Write a client.
There is a *reason* why a web browser is used:
- Cross platform. Linux, Mac, Windows, embedded whatever.
- No development costs directly associated with the client.
- Upgrades are instantaneous. CTRL-F5 effectively reloads all the software for a site.
- For some use cases it means a significantly cheaper interface to business platforms. No expensive licenses client side, or maintenance costs for a fat client.
- For some use cases, it does not mean SAAS. It could be an internal, proprietary, business platform delivered through a web interface only.
- For some use cases, it could mean greatly enhanced security as you have an internal website that services all interactions with customer data. No direct access to back end data is even possible.
Subscription models make perfect sense in some cases. You're rather simplistic rant about those fees completely ignores the fact that for businesses it often makes financial sense. In order to run your own platform you need to:
- Absorb 100% of the costs of development.
- Absorb 100% of the costs of maintenance, which includes keeping software engineers on staff who designed it.
- Absorb 100% of the costs of operating the platform. Includes servers, bandwidth, software licenses, etc.
I'm sure there are other costs and caveats I am not mentioning too.
I've looked into some very expensive SAAS platforms (30k per month subscription fee). I can tell you it actually made sense. To develop that platform would have taken me a team of developers and minimum 18 months to deliver. I have no doubt that I could have pulled it off, but in the end it would have cost more than the fees and required almost the subscription fee per month just to keep some of the developers on staff to maintain it, and continue to develop features we may need in the future.
Holding customer's data hostage? That only happens if you're an idiot . Have a very well spelled out legal contract, and make nightly incremental backups of your data. Some of the SAAS providers I have worked with set up an rsync of our data to our own servers. We back that up incrementally as well.
So where is the data being held hostage? It's not. What you are held hostage to is the platform. That is going to be true whether the platform exists some place else, or is a local executable on a local server in your company. That you are not always going to be able to get around very quickly. Switching business platforms is not something one just does for the heck of it.
Things shift around of course, but right now local clients that connect to business platforms are going the way of the dinosaur. Honestly, why even do it at all? Does not a standardized client that runs across multiple platforms not make sense to you at all? It happens to be a web browser right now, and in a more limited fashion Java, but it makes perfect sense to have one. Perhaps that is why SAAS has been taking off so fast. You know... the benefits to the end users.