Re: Migrating some high-entropy HTTP headers to Client Hints.

[Mike West <[e-mail]>]

On Fri, Nov 30, 2018 at 1:30 AM Mark Nottingham <[e-mail]> wrote:

> I, for one, welcome our new Client Hint overlords.
>
> Personally, I'd like to see these integrated into the current CH document,
> rather than as separate drafts. CH still needs some work, so it's not like
> we're going to get it out the door tomorrow.
>

These hints seem pretty clearly separable from the infrastructure upon
which they're built. I'd prefer to split them out into things-in-themselves
that we can point developers towards independently, giving ourselves the
opportunity to explain the rationale and background more coherently than I
think we'll be able to if we bury these in a subsection of the larger
document.

I'll defer to the group as to how y'all would like to handle these, but I'd
prefer several short and focused docs as a reader.

-mike

However, it seems like Ilya wants to go in a different direction, based
> upon the notes we received for Bangkok.
>
> Ilya, your thoughts?
>
>
>
> > On 29 Nov 2018, at 9:22 pm, Mike West <[e-mail]> wrote:
> >
> > Hey folks,
> >
> > Section 9.7 of RFC7231 rightly notes that some of the content
> negotiation headers user agents deliver in HTTP requests create substantial
> fingerprinting surface. I think it would be beneficial if we took steps to
> reduce their prevalence on the wire, and Client Hints looks like a
> reasonable infrastructure on top of which to build.
> >
> > `User-Agent` and `Accept-Language` seem like particularly tasty and
> low-hanging fruit, and I've sketched out two proposals as proofs of concept:
> >
> > *   `User-Agent` could be represented as ~four distinct hints: `UA`,
> `Model`, `Platform`, and `Arch`:
> https://github.com/mikewest/ua-client-hints is a high-level explainer,
> and https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-west-ua-client-hints a sketchy ID
> for the new headers.
> >
> > *   `Accept-Language` could be represented as a `Lang` hint:
> https://github.com/mikewest/lang-client-hint is a high-level explainer,
> https://tools.ietf.org/html/draft-west-lang-client-hint an equally
> sketchy ID for the new header.
> >
> > I'd appreciate y'all's feedback. Thanks!
> >
> > -mike
>
> --
> Mark Nottingham   https://www.mnot.net/
>
>