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List:       kde-usability
Subject:    Re: Security and usability
From:       Sander Devrieze <s.devrieze () pandora ! be>
Date:       2003-08-22 23:57:18
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Op maandag 18 augustus 2003 15:30, schreef Gav Wood:
<snip>
> > So I'm really very sorry when I don't see how annoying user's with
> > cookie-warnings is increasing privacy.
>
> in essence you are right in that ip address could be used to tag some users
> better than cookies (namely those with static ips who connect directly to
> the website). however in the general case cookies perform the job better.
> what's more, it's far easier and costs much less (in features, time, money)
> to simply discard a cookie than to completely anonymise your http session.
>
> so if all cookies that are not neccessary to the functioning of a website
> were discarded, then it *would* surely lead to increased privacy.
>
> now, let's relate this to usability:
>
> i would imagine most users (generally) do not want to be bombarded with
> cookie acceptance questions each time they go to a random website. i
> personally don't mind "sifting through the rubbish" and only letting
> legitimate cookies through, but everytime a friend uses my machine they get
> annoyed with the incessent dialogs.

I agree. Firstly it annoyes me too because it was new for me. But now I like 
it, because I now the intention of it. My statement in an example: it's not 
because people coming from MS Windows are annoyed by the file system 
hierarchy, that we have to implement the MS Windows file system. If our way 
of doing something is the best way, we shouldn't change it. Even if it causes 
annoyance by people new to KDE. The only thing we can (and IMO should) do, is 
telling the user why it's better: docs, tooltips, good dialogs, interactive 
tutorial, slideshow, press, promo,... are possible ways to do this.

> so the software should become more clever and automatically accept cookies
> that are definately good (session cookies?), reject cookies that are bad
> (cookies from another server) and do something useful like tentatively
> accept cookies of unknown karma with an ignorable but informative passive
> popup.

IMO this is even more bad: it's not ethical to let computers _default_ 
_decide_ about things like users privicy. The only thing which may be 
considered as _default_ is implementing something which _advices_ the user 
about the cookie.

This is also why spamassassin, other spamfilters, virusfilters,... don't 
delete mails by _default_ (but it's possible if you want).

- --
Mvg, Sander Devrieze.

Jabber ID : sander@amessage.de ( www.jabber.org )
Public Key: www.keyserver.net  (   0x73470923   )
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