Note on "Barring Netscape"
The Microsoft Internet Explorer sends the user-agent "Mozilla 1.22 (compatible" to hte server, which triggers an incorrect response from, e.g., www.c2.org. This little fraud has the potential to make you look silly if left unexplained. If you get the string "compatible;" (or Compatible;?), you should instead pop up Netscapisms that show that Microsoft is lying. Or maybe Billisms. <font face="Symbol">, which affects only MSIE, might be appropriate. -rich
-----BEGIN PGP SIGNED MESSAGE----- On Dec 6, 11:57am, Richard Charles Graves wrote:
The Microsoft Internet Explorer sends the user-agent "Mozilla 1.22 (compatible" to hte server, which triggers an incorrect response from, e.g., www.c2.org. This little fraud has the potential to make you look silly if left unexplained.
this *is* fraud, in a way. Microsoft is shipping a product which in a certain exchange claims to be a product of another company. Microsoft's software is being treated better around the net because it is recognised as Netscape, which it isn't. It would be somewhat like me walking through the short line at Heathrow as a EU citizen even though I'm actually a Canadian citizen. If Microsoft had used "MSIE 1.0 (...)", then they would have to gain "market share" in convincing the web that their browser is worth writing content for. As a side note, there are suggestions that httpds should be a little more intelligent about HTML, recognising which clients can handle which versions of html [so that they would ship 1.0 to those which can handle 1.0, 2.0 to those which think they can handle 2.0, and perhaps we have a 2.0-netscape-ENHANCED-ha-ha-ha]. If this were to be encouraged by both httpd creators and client creators, with both sides being honest, then uSoft would not need to claim to be shipping Netscape. They could just say html-2.0-microsoft-ENHANCED-ow-my-sides [e.g.] and servers could check the 2.0 and pay attention to the rest if they wished. [On a side note, if all governments decided to close up shop tomorrow, many people on this list would be happy. Which is more likely?] http, from my meagre understanding, is supposed to be a negotiation (among other things) with both sides agreeing on what the client can handle and what the server can offer. Perhaps Microsoft could be encouraged to be honest about what they are shipping. (I don't doubt that other clients may also lie about who they are.) richard ps - Life might be a lot easier for everyone on the web if Netscape forced uSoft software to be honest about what it is. ObBarelyCrypto: Do our *browsers* now have to start authenticating themselves? - -- Richard Martin I DON'T SPEAK FOR ALIAS|WAVEFRONT Alias|Wavefront - Toronto Office [Co-op Software Developer, Games Team] rmartin@aw.sgi.com/g4frodo@cdf.toronto.edu http://www.io.org/~samwise Trinity College UofT ChemPhysCompSci 9T7+PEY=9T8 Shad Valley Waterloo 1992 -----BEGIN PGP SIGNATURE----- Version: 2.6.2 iQCVAwUBMMYBVB1gtCYLvIJ1AQEi3gP+IqWbKqk6MTKviGMRw5ZKde+9BQ/iQOIA jrrDXEZQIdwHBeeATOzqYFVzVxi5bQFgLPCt/kNTsyARwQbLGQ54HuR57qPX4EOm d0d2A7oL4qsFwGvmETP4HlBQy10e5vKqM/7pLZl0s9cE/a3kWeZq+XCS4oBKHDtF alTjxYClsAg= =hOc9 -----END PGP SIGNATURE-----
"Richard Martin" <rmartin@aw.sgi.com> writes:
On Dec 6, 11:57am, Richard Charles Graves wrote:
The Microsoft Internet Explorer sends the user-agent "Mozilla 1.22 (compatible" to hte server, which triggers an incorrect response from, e.g., www.c2.org. This little fraud has the potential to make you look silly if left unexplained.
this *is* fraud, in a way. Microsoft is shipping a product which in a certain exchange claims to be a product of another company. Microsoft's software is being treated better around the net because it is recognised as Netscape, which it isn't.
This reminds me of how many many years ago, when IBM and Microsoft were good friends, earlier version of MS Windows(?) video drivers were hard-coded not to recognize a video card as being VGA-compatible (or even EGA-?) unless its ROM had the 3 letters "IBM" at offset 0x1e. The genuine vanilla IBM card had the words "COPYRIGHT IBM" at that address. Various clone makers had to put "IBM" at that location to make their cards work with Windows(?). E.g., I have a Trident VGA card whose ROM says "RESERVED FOR IBM COMPATIBILITY" positioned so that "IBM" is exactly at 0x1E. Some other cards just say "IBM" there with no explanation in adjascent memory. I think that if some servers refuse to talk to clients unless they see "Mozilla", then I can't blame Microsoft for impersonating Netscape. I think the whole protocol is way stupid. Instead of asking the client for its name, and then looking up in some database what a client with that name is capable of, a server should ask the client only about the capabilities that the server is planning to use. --- Dr. Dimitri Vulis Brighton Beach Boardwalk BBS, Forest Hills, N.Y.: +1-718-261-2013, 14.4Kbps
participants (3)
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dlv＠bwalk.dm.com -
Richard Charles Graves -
Richard Martin