Re: lynx-dev lynx, hotmail, and cookies - an update

[Klaus Weide]

On Sun, 15 Aug 1999, Kim DeVaughn wrote:
> Of course, adding:
> 
> COOKIE_LOOSE_INVALID_DOMAINS:.passport.com,.msn.com
> 
> to my lynx.cfg obviates the need for all the manual interaction, but I
> thought I'd go thru all the gory details in case one of our cookie-guru's
> wants to look into *why* so many (TEN, count 'em, 10) prompts/replies are
> required.

That's easy - many invalid cookies => many "invalid cookie" prompts.

You know you have reached a Microsoft site when __________________.

I think Fote's formulation a long time ago "after the multiple
redirections and replacements abated"[1] was a nice description of
the bombardment effect.  Apparently not much has changed.

[1] <URL:http://www.ics.uci.edu/pub/ietf/http/hypermail/1997q3/0326.html>
  
> And it isn't at all obvious that several of the "y" replies are even doing
> anything ... many folks might think lynx was hung, before they've entered
> enough y(eses) ... as I did initially ... :-) ...!

Sure, the prompts could be more obvious / more informative / more recognizable.
The problem of putting a maximum of useful info on a limited statusline
hasn't been solved for these prompts (INVALID_COOKIE_DOMAIN_CONFIRMATION
and INVALID_COOKIE_PATH_CONFIRMATION).  The ADVANCED_COOKIE_CONFIRMATION
prompt (see HTAlert.c) tries to do better (by calculating available space
and showing a variable portion of cookie name/value), but that is specific
code that hasn't been generalized.

> Anyway ... I've setup an account/mailbox at hotmail.com for lynx testing,
> if anyone else wants to use it, and made a trace of all the above nonesense
> (beginning with account entry, and ending when the actual hotmail page is
> rendered).
> 
> The trace is available at <http://www.best.com/~kimdv/lynx/hotmail_trace.gz>,
> and the account/passwd data is embedded.

I haven't looked inside, but you serve the file in a broken way, note the
Content-Type below.
   Klaus

bash-2.03$ telnet www.best.com 80
Trying 206.184.139.12...
Connected to www.best.com.
Escape character is '^]'.
HEAD /~kimdv/lynx/hotmail_trace.gz HTTP/1.0
Host: www.best.com

HTTP/1.0 200 OK
Date: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 22:46:16 GMT
Server: BESTWWWD/2.4
MIME-version: 1.0
Content-Type: (null)
Content-Length: 13563
Last-modified: Sun, 15 Aug 1999 11:33:50 GMT
Accept-Ranges: bytes

Connection closed by foreign host.
bash-2.03$