Re: Last Call: <draft-nottingham-safe-hint-05.txt> (The "safe" HTTP Preference) to Proposed Standard

[joel jaeggli <[e-mail]>]

On 10/21/14 2:33 PM, The IESG wrote:
> 
> The IESG has received a request from an individual submitter to consider
> the following document:
> - 'The "safe" HTTP Preference'
>   <draft-nottingham-safe-hint-05.txt> as Proposed Standard
> 
> The IESG plans to make a decision in the next few weeks, and solicits
> final comments on this action. Please send substantive comments to the
> [e-mail] mailing lists by 2014-11-18. Exceptionally, comments may be
> sent to [e-mail] instead. In either case, please retain the
> beginning of the Subject line to allow automated sorting.

I think this a bad idea.

A safe hint could have a semantic meaning if it were to express what
the user meant by safe. Were that the case it would in many respects be
privacy revealing (I am child, I am browsing from a computer in a US
federal office building, I am a resident of an Amana colony, a kibbutz,
or the temple of Set) and therefore only appropriate between parties
with a pre-existing or at a  minimum consent based relationship.

As it is the meaning of a safe hint is to be intuited by the recipient.

I send you the request you send me the bits, if I need to run software
that applies meaning and context to those bits and chooses therefore to
fail to serve them that's my business.

joel

> Abstract
> 
> 
>    This specification defines a "safe" preference for HTTP requests,
>    expressing a desire to avoid "objectionable" content.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> The file can be obtained via
> http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-nottingham-safe-hint/
> 
> IESG discussion can be tracked via
> http://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/draft-nottingham-safe-hint/ballot/
> 
> 
> No IPR declarations have been submitted directly on this I-D.
> 
>