Subject: RE: "Wallet" Detection

From: Ian King <[email-masked]>
Date: Mon, 15 Mar 1999 07:33:00 -0800

I think I was "hearing" something different, too.  I was concerned you were
suggesting Yet Another New Header.  :-)  You're right, browsers are often
configurable in such manner as you suggest (and I'm almost certain IE is).
But again, it does sound like an instance of a more general problem.  -- Ian

-----Original Message-----
From: Donald E. Eastlake 3rd [mailto:[email-masked]]
Sent: Monday, March 15, 1999 12:25 AM
To: Ian King
Cc: [email-masked]
Subject: Re: "Wallet" Detection 

Sorry, I must not have made what I was suggesting clear.

It's really not that big a deal.  You can find various "sniffer" code
documented here and there all over the web.  Anyone trying to deal
with VRML or various streaming media, etc., needs to try to figure out
if some plug-in or MIME type handler or other is installed.

Anyone trying to deploy IOTP in the open Internet context has this
problem.  Why should everyone trying to do that be doomed to attack
this problem independently?  With a little pooling of information, I
think a workable suggestion could be put together as an Informational
document.

Maybe something "under development" will make this task easier and in
the future a better recommendation would exist but that does not solve
the problem now.  I'm not suggesting assuming any change in browsers
so whether there is, or will soon be, something to solve this that the
browser makers "are looking for" wouldn't affect this.  In any case,
diffusion of browers is slower that it used to be.  Enough people have
multi-feature browsers stuffed with features that there is less
incentive to snap up the latest version.  If a better technique were
standardized today, how many years would it be berfore it was in X% of
the browsers out there?

I've been looking into this some and it seems to me that a combination
of conditional JavaScript and ActiveX Registry query could do the
trick in enough of the cases to be a reasonable engineering solution.

I don't quite see what the problem is here with "multiple solutions".
If there are multiple ways that work with the bulk of current browsers
for the server to tell if a MIME type is supported at a browser, that
does not seem like a problem.  If the WG wants to do this and there is
a rough consensus to suggest one way or a few alternatives, that way
or those alternatives could be documented.

Thanks,
Donald

From:  Ian King <[email-masked]>
Message-ID:  <FFD1BA74C6A7D111A09500805F9F88F50C93E1FC@RED-MSG-43>
To:  "Donald E. Eastlake 3rd" <[email-masked]>,
[email-masked]
Date:  Sun, 14 Mar 1999 21:29:59 -0800

>Ouch -- that's a big problem, and I'd suggest that it can only be
considered
>in the context of what "may be under development", to avoid multiple
>solutions to the same problem.  And coming up with a "solution" that
doesn't
>have that consensus won't address the current browsers, because the browser
>makers will be looking for that broad consensus.  -- Ian
>
>-----Original Message-----
>From: Donald E. Eastlake 3rd [mailto:[email-masked]]
>Sent: Sunday, March 14, 1999 8:37 AM
>To: [email-masked]
>Subject: "Wallet" Detection
>
>
>
>For the Internet Open Trading Protocol and similar protocols operating
>via HTTP, web servers are frequently faced with the problem of
>determining whether software to handle the protocol they wish to use
>is installed at the user's browser/machine.  This frequently means
>finding out if a particular MIME type, such as application/iotp, is
>being handled.
>
>Theoretically this should be determinable from HTTP headers and may be
>in some cases but too many browsers send "*/*" for the MIME types they
>accept.  Other methods of negotiations may be under development but
>what I'm talking about is solving the actual oeprational problem on
>the bulk of the browsers actually in use from today to within the next
>6 to 12 months.
>
>I'd like to suggest a work item for the TRADE WG to develop an
>Informational RFC suggesting a real workable way to do this.
>
>Thanks,
>Donald
>=====================================================================
> Donald E. Eastlake 3rd   +1 914-276-2668     [email-masked]
> 65 Shindegan Hill Road, RR#1  +1 914-784-7913(work)  [email-masked]
> Carmel, NY 10512 USA
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