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Re: Interesting side effect of the new IE patch


From: Stefan Esser <s.esser () e-matters de>
Date: Thu, 5 Feb 2004 19:54:18 +0100

Hello,

FIAT (the famous Italian CAR producer) invested quite an amount of money
and effort in lauching the promotional site:
http://www.buy () fiat com

....I think they must not be very happy now..... :(

Of course they are not happy now. Like a lot of other people who relied
on this standard. It is really sad, that Microsoft removes features
because they are to lazy to think up other solutions. Like showing
the username, password in a different color, not showing it at all...
It is one thing to remove a feature because it is like writing the
password to the back of your keyboard but it is another thing to 
just remove it because you have no clue how to make it obvious for
people that this is not part of the servername. 

If Microsoft would care about the "password written on the backside"
problem they would have to remove all password remembering functions
from IE. Removing this feature did not make HTTP/HTTPS more secure
it just forces people to attach notes to their monitor again or to
use the "remember my password" feature.
(Oh yeah and this is not a Microsoft only problem, or why do f.e.
openssh/openssl allow RSA keys without passphrases?)

Ohh yes and I choose the word standard, because standard is not what
some RFC/paper dictates, but what the majority of people (or browsers)
use (support). NTSC would not exist otherwise, because NTSC was NOT
the official standard for color television in the beginning.


Stefan

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