diary: may I geek out for a moment?

You know, I don't often show my geeky side on here, but I'm about to for a moment, so if it's not a personal kink of yours, feel free to avert your eyes.

This annoyed the hell out of me, just from sheer misunderstanding of how the web works. I don't dare quote directly from it, might spawn an entirely new generation of idiotic threats about hacking (oh, don't get me started), but suffice to say a site linked to them, and now they want that link taken down. Of course, it got worse when the site linking to them (quite rightly, too) refused.

Ah, finally we get a hint of the kind of hubris that was behind BT's desire to own the hyperlink. Not that I'm trying to suggest that all UK residents are like this!

Just for the record, the hyperlink was created so that any one document could link to another. If you don't want your document linked, you don't put it online. Just like if you don't want to see anyone, don't leave your house and don't answer your phone. Once you're out there, in either scenario, you're out there.

Tim Berners-Lee (the man who invented "the web") talks about link myths here (and you'll notice my horrifying decision to quote, in part, from his work before linking to it - I'm sure he won't mind):

The ability to refer to a document (or a person or any thing else) is in general a fundamental right of free speech to the same extent that speech is free. Making the reference with a hypertext link is more efficient but changes nothing else.

And also from the w3c (the standards body for "the web"):

The only purpose of a URI is to identify a Web resource. It is basic to the architecture of the Web that URIs may be freely interchanged, and that once one knows a URI, one may pass it onto others, publish it, and attempt to access whatever resource it identifies. There is a clear distinction between identifying a resource and accessing it. It is entirely reasonable to control access to a resource, but entirely futile to prevent it being identified.

Of course, the fact that this kind of education is still neccessary in 2004 deeply saddens me - but then, I'm celebrating my 10th year of web access. Reminds me of the horror stories I've heard about people using their CD-ROM drives for coffee cup holders or searching their keyboard for the "any key". If you can't figure it out, folks (and aren't even willing to try) then sorry, you don't belong online. Go publish a book or magazine or something.

Okay. Geek rant over. More kinky shit soon.

2004.01.09 07:07 AM
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