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

From: "Murray S. Kucherawy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 08:08:36 -1000

On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 8:54 AM, <[email-masked]> wrote:

> I have also read the draft, and while I'm not entirely enthusiastic about
> the
> approach, it's quite clear this is going to happen regardless, and having a
> standardized mechanism for it strikes me as a far superior situation than
> having a bunch of nonstandard ways to do it deploy.
>
> I also find the objections to adopting it I've seen so far to be lacking
> foundation.
>
> I therefore support adoption of this draft.

Having read the entire thread up to here, including the last three posts
that I didn't understand, I think the above nicely sums up my position as
well.  Ship it.

-MSK

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 21:06:43 -0800

On 11/15/2014 10:08 AM, Murray S. Kucherawy wrote:
> On Fri, Oct 24, 2014 at 8:54 AM, <[email-masked]
> <mailto:[email-masked]>> wrote:
> 
>     I have also read the draft, and while I'm not entirely enthusiastic
>     about the
> that I didn't understand, I think the above nicely sums up my position
> as well.  Ship it.

Mine too.

It's not that the objections lack foundation -- though yes, so do lack
it -- in fact some are probably correct, while others are irrelevant.

Rather, it's that the mechanism is only offered as a standardized way
for a browser to request a feature that already exists in a number of
major sites.

Since we like to claim we approve of standardizing existing practice, we
should be cautious about demanding perfection from that practice before
being willing to standardize it..

d/

-- 
Dave Crocker
Brandenburg InternetWorking
bbiw.net

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From: "Murray S. Kucherawy" <[email-masked]>
Date: Sat, 15 Nov 2014 19:13:52 -1000

> being willing to standardize it..
There's also the small matter of the adjective "proposed".

-MSK

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From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 18:58:48 +0000

> Rather, it's that the mechanism is only offered as a standardized way for a browser to request a feature that already exists in a number of major sites.

And that's precisely the problem. 

Sites can easily adapt their services to the needs and desires of their users. They can do it today using site specific settings. I am pretty sure that these settings require more than just one bit, so we have to assume that sites will still need these settings tomorrow even if that safe bit proposal was adopted. There is thus not much engineering benefit. In fact there is probably a cost, with settings coming from two channels instead of only one.

By creating a standard, we would be creating a social norm. It would not take long for regulators to mandate "safe" behavior for web sites, or to enforce the safe bit in various kinds of "great firewalls." It will all be in the name of protecting the children, but we all know that the real target will be dissent and free speech. By offering this setting as a standard, the IETF would become an accomplice of repressive regimes and other religious dictarures.

Some features do not need to be standardized.

-- Christian Huitema

---

From: Stephen Farrell <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 19:32:43 +0000

On 16/11/14 18:58, Christian Huitema wrote:
> 
> 
>> Rather, it's that the mechanism is only offered as a standardized
>> way for a browser to request a feature that already exists in a
>> number of major sites.
> 
> Sites can easily adapt their services to the needs and desires of
> their users. They can do it today using site specific settings. I am
> pretty sure that these settings require more than just one bit, so we
> have to assume that sites will still need these settings tomorrow
> even if that safe bit proposal was adopted. There is thus not much
> engineering benefit. In fact there is probably a cost, with settings
> coming from two channels instead of only one.
> 
> By creating a standard, we would be creating a social norm. It would
> not take long for regulators to mandate "safe" behavior for web
> sites, or to enforce the safe bit in various kinds of "great
> firewalls." It will all be in the name of protecting the children,
> but we all know that the real target will be dissent and free speech.
> By offering this setting as a standard, the IETF would become an
> accomplice of repressive regimes and other religious dictarures.
> 

I agree with Christian. Should this end up being published (which
I'd prefer not see happen as stated before) then I think at minimum
there needs to be reasonable recognition in the text of the issues
identified during the LC. Right now, the draft is (entirely
understandably) pretty positive, e.g.

  "If this desire is proactively advertised by the user agent, things
   become much simpler."

I think the LC demonstrates that there are reasons to believe that
"things" in fact might get worse in various respects, even if they
appear simpler from the POV of those proposing/implementing this.
(And as many Internet-draft and RFC titles over the years have amply
demonstrated... simpler != better:-)

S.

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From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 16 Nov 2014 19:35:29 -0000

>Sites can easily adapt their services to the needs and desires of their users. They
>can do it today using site specific settings. I am pretty sure that these settings
>require more than just one bit, ...

Here's a concrete suggestion: the Bing search engine and IE browser
support this safe flag right now.  Could you talk to the people
responsible for them and ask whether they considered more fine grained
schemes such as PICS, and why they implemented a single bit instead?

R's,
John

---

From: Dave Crocker <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 11:47:24 -0800

On 11/16/2014 10:58 AM, Christian Huitema wrote:
> pretty sure that these settings require more than just one bit, 

"pretty sure"?

This implies that you haven't been tracking the discussion of this topic
so far.

> so we
...
> By creating a standard, we would be creating a social norm. 

It's a shame that you ignored the rest of my message, which joined in
noting the much-referenced fact about established practice for this
feature, and that you chose, instead, to launch into detached theory and
surmise, which has little to do with the current topic.

d/

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 22:54:20 +0200

> On Nov 16, 2014, at 9:35 PM, John Levine <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

Or, I can go to their website and see that their “bit" implements ternary logic:

And what’s more, their website is much more specific about what is and isn’t “safe”. For them, it’s all about “adult” content, while the draft explicitly reveals that it does *not* mean “child at keyboard”.

In some places websites advocating blasphemy would be considered unsafe, meaning that you could get in trouble for reading them, but bing doesn’t care about that. That’s fine, and pretty much all of the examples of websites that have safe flags mean the same thing by “safe”. So why not state that in the draft?  Why not call it “porn” or the much more common euphemism, “adult”?

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 16 Nov 2014 21:10:16 -0000

>Or, I can go to their website and see that their “bit" implements ternary logic:

Bing implements the exact proposal in this I-D.  (The I-D says so.)

If you believe otherwise, please provide references.

R's,
John

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 23:48:33 +0200

> On Nov 16, 2014, at 11:10 PM, John Levine <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

Reference?  Just see the screenshot of the Bing preferences page:
https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/attach/ietf/pngkwLXzM.png

So a single bit value might get you to the “moderate” or “strict” settings, even if your profile says that you would like “off”, but that’s not what they want. If they wanted a strictly on/off switch, they would implement it in their profiles, just as Google did.

Yoav

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From: Doug Barton <[email-masked]>
Date: Sun, 16 Nov 2014 14:03:36 -0800

> By creating a standard, we would be creating a social norm. It would not take long for regulators to mandate "safe" behavior for web sites, or to enforce the safe bit in various kinds of "great fir…

The Internet routes around damage. Let's say you're in one of those 
repressive regimes. The web sites in your country are already heavily 
regulated, so this feature is of no consequence. Any sites that express 
dissent about your regime are going to be in regulatory domains where 
free speech is permitted, and are free to ignore the safe option.

The only thing I see wrong with this is the one bit. I would prefer to 
see one byte, with a standard meaning developed for the bitmask. 
Something like:

1	Filter pornographic images and language
2	Filter violent images and language
4	Filter offensive language
8	Filter everything

I'm not married to this scheme, but I think it's a good start.

> Some features do not need to be standardized.

Interesting.  I use this same argument in the DNS protocol world for 
things like identifying the requesting client's subnet, and negative 
trust anchors. I'm regularly shouted down and told that since there is 
already running code we MUST document it for interoperability purposes. 
Can I quote you? :)

Doug

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From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 16 Nov 2014 22:06:39 -0000

>https://mailarchive.ietf.org/arch/attach/ietf/pngkwLXzM.png

Sigh.  It's hard to argue with someone whose only responses are to
change the topic.

As I (and others) have pointed out multiple times, the Bing web site
implements the exact browser extension in this I-D right now, all one
bit of it.  If you claim that we're lying, just say so.

See this page for details: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/2980016

R's,
John

---

From: Yoav Nir <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 00:19:09 +0200

> On Nov 17, 2014, at 12:06 AM, John Levine <[email-masked]> wrote:
> 

I’ve never said you are lying. I have said that this is not what the people behind Bing want.

And what content providers want is the topic, not what some browser (or even all browsers) implemented.

Yoav

---

From: "John R Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 16 Nov 2014 17:28:04 -0500

> I’ve never said you are lying. I have said that this is not what the people behind Bing want.

Nonetheless, Bing were among the first to implement it.  Why do you think 
that is?  Is there any possibility they observed that people usually the 
flag all the way on or all the way off, so the middle values aren't very 
useful?

I really hope Christian has a chance to talk to his co-workers about this 
exact question and let us know what their thinking is.

Regards,
John Levine, [email-masked], Taughannock Networks, Trumansburg NY
Please consider the environment before reading this e-mail.

---

From: Christian Huitema <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 00:13:49 +0000

> I really hope Christian has a chance to talk to his co-workers about this exact question and let us know what their thinking is.

My personal opinion is clear, but it is indeed a personal opinion.

-- Christian Huitema

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 Nov 2014 02:10:04 -0000

>see one byte, with a standard meaning developed for the bitmask. 

We've had multiple attempts to do multi-factor web content filtering,
such as PICS.  All of them have failed to gain any acceptance.  Can
you tell us in more detail why it would be useful to go through a
similar exercise again?

Please keep in mind that two of the three most popular browsers in the
world, and the #2 search engine, have already implemented exactly
what's in this I-D, so it is in production use now.

R's,
John

---

From: Doug Barton <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 17 Nov 2014 14:23:14 -0800

> you tell us in more detail why it would be useful to go through a

Because this time around there is actual traction for doing $something, 
so one could easily argue that taking advantage of that traction to do 
something more useful than one bit is a good plan.

> what's in this I-D, so it is in production use now.

... and as has been repeatedly pointed out to you, all of the popular 
search engines have cookie-based options with a much more fine-grained 
approach than "on" or "off." So clearly there is a demand for more 
granularity, because *they are already doing it.*

That said, I read Mark's response to Joseph Hall that more than one bit 
can also lead to more granular data mining efforts that might help 
unscrupulous sites guess the age of the person behind the keyboard (or 
guess more accurately).

Mark, can you respond to this point in more detail? Specifically, given 
that there are already more-granular cookie-based solutions which are 
nearly universally deployed, how much does preventing granularity in the 
initial signal to the site help avoid this pitfall?

Doug

---

From: "John Levine" <[email-masked]>
Date: 17 Nov 2014 22:43:33 -0000

>granularity, because *they are already doing it.*

Huh.  I was under the impression that Google's search engine, where
the SafeSearch option offers only a single bit, was fairly popular.
Ditto YouTube which has a one bit Safety mode. You learn something new
every day. 

See http://www.google.com/preferences

R's,
John