Jim Choate wrote:
Hi,
I have been looking at how to impliment picketing on the web. To date I have been unable to come up with a way to force a connection to one machine to go through a third machine in order to express some view about the original target.
This idea came to me while watching some folks picket a local grocer over something I couldn't make out (the signs were poorly done). It occured to me that since one could argue that the links between sites are public avenues a site could 'picket' another site. The question became at this point, how?
So far I have been unable to figure a way out. Any ideas you might care to share with us all?
| No people do so much harm as those who go about doing good.
Jim: I know you've been on this list for quite some time, but this is not only impossible (as you would know if you understood the technology involved); it's also highly undesirable. You may dislike one of the sites linking to yours, but you really can't hijack their connections and force people to listen to you who don't want to. Imagine if you could! Anyone who dislikes any other page on the web could block access - 'right to life' groups could hijack connections to Planned Parenthood, a church site could block playboy.com for the entire world, any government could extend it's domestic censorship standards to the entire net. Pepsi could block links to Coke. There are two things you *can* do. 1. You can put a disclaimer on your page "If you linked here from XXX.XXX.XXX, please be aware that I object to that connection for the following reasons..." 2. If you or your webmaster have any kind of technical sophistication, you can force links to your page to go to a CGI script, which uses the HTTP-referrer: header to provide different pages depending on the source of the connection. I suspect that Ticketmaster is doing something like this in blocking links from MSN. But please, don't try to extend the 'information superhighway' (blech!) metaphor to include virtual sidewalks with picketing rights - this is silly. A better metaphor for what you want to do would have a church groups insist that all mailings from Planned Parenthood diverted to them, so that they can insert their own fliers into the envelopes. Peter Trei trei@process.com Disclaimer: The above represents my opinion only.