Indian publication Indian express was offline on alleged Crime Branch complaint - <AUTHOR> https://scroll.in/latest/899295/indian-express-website-back-online-after-going-down-for-several-hours <comment><AUTHOR> Excerpt: On Tuesday afternoon, the newspaper said its web host (net4) had blocked access without alerting the company, based on a complaint it claimed to have received from the Mumbai Police's Crime Branch. Police, however, told the company it had not asked the host to block the domain, said the chief executive officer of the daily's digital wing.</comment>


EXLCOM: X-Com Re-Implemented in Excel - <AUTHOR> http://exlcom.jimdo.com/ <comment><USER2> Awesome attempt. It has a lot of detail.

Also a great illustration that building stuff for lots of other people in VBA isn't a good idea, because it can vary so much depending on environment: I got a bunch of macro errors, and it was possible to drag stuff I think shouldn't be draggable. It also removed my menu bar the next time I started it (which then came back on the next Excel start). Excel 2010 on Win 8.1, Chinese language version (14.0.7153.5000 32-Bit).

But I do love VBA as a veritable Swiss Army Knife installed in every office PC around the world, able to script stuff. For yourself. Anything complex will break completely unexpectedly.

But great effort, I'm sure your VBA is much advanced.

</comment><comment><USER3> (Why are there no screenshots on the landing page? Why are the screenshots hidden away on other pages hosted on imgur with links you have to click to view them? Basic marketing 101 ;) )

<comment><USER4> There are screenshots on the second page of the menu [1] and directly on the page.

I do agree that putting them on the front page would have made a better experience.

[1]: [http://exlcom.jimdo.com/about-exlcom/](http://exlcom.jimdo.com/about- exlcom/)

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> This seems like the kind of thing that might draw more interest via Patreon than purchases, especially with the promise of semi-regular updates to keep some buzz going around about "the Excel XCOM guy".

<comment><USER6> Patreon is an interesting idea for projects like this. The issue I have is that Patreon is currently viewed as something where you pay $x/mo and get regular substantial updates (comics, art, etc). I'm not sure OP could deliver enough monthly value to justify a Patreon subscription.

<comment><USER5> Patreon also has an $X/update model (which you can cap at $Y/mo as a patron if you want), which fits rather nicely for niche products as long as the creator can avoid the perception of padding out updates.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER7> I guess this won't work in OpenOffice.

Does it use actual TP, or the dumbed down 2-turn system of Firaxis' "reimagining"?

<comment><USER8> There are aspects of the Firaxis versions that could be accurately described as dumbed down (mostly the unrealistic LoF, resulting in all-or-nothing cover mechanic and no FF or multiple enemy hits possible). But IMO, the new turn system is an improvement over the original, it's a good balance between tactics options and accessibility.

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> I've a good mind to port this to LibreOffice :-)

Or even use it to test out VBA compatibility!</comment>


KittyCam – Cat Facial Recognition Powered by Raspberry Pi - <AUTHOR> https://github.com/girliemac/RPi-KittyCam

<comment><USER2> A swede goes nuts and builds a cat door with built in face recognition, heating, lights, rfid etc based on raspberry pi:

Pictures and story: [http://joakimsoderberg.github.io/catcierge/](http://joakimsoderberg.github.io/catcierge/)

Code: [https://github.com/JoakimSoderberg/catcierge](https://github.com/JoakimSoderberg/catcierge)

<comment><AUTHOR> OMG, I was just wondering about if RFID works to scan cat's ID microchips!

</comment></comment><comment><USER3> Now you just need to automatically post the pictures to imgur/reddit and let the karma flow in. :|

<comment><USER4> For bonus points, feed the score of each imgur/reddit post back into the Kittydar neural net that is doing cat facial detection so that it learns to snap photos that yield maximum karma.

</comment></comment><comment><USER5> "or put his butt on the camera, it fails to tell me my cat was eating."

My favorite issue this year.

</comment><comment><USER6> I know a couple shelters that would love cat/dog facial recognition that was able to identify the animal based on it's face.

This project isn't that, but it's still pretty cool.

</comment><comment><USER7> I'm reminded of this DIY cat door that used pattern recognition to prevent the owner's cats from bringing dead animals into the house.

[http://www.quantumpicture.com/Flo_Control/flo_control.htm](http://www.quantumpicture.com/Flo_Control/flo_control.htm) (2010)

</comment><comment><USER8> For some reason, I'm on all the different things posted here, this makes me want to get into robotics. I've been thinking about ordering a raspberrypi, or a MicroPython board, etc., but something holds me back. Maybe the fear of getting into something that I won't have time for.

</comment><comment><USER9> I love cat based electronic projects. I've been trying for the last few weeks to come up with a real time GPS tracker, but I just can't seem to finalize the parts list. All gps chips I know of are too big and tend to overheat.

<comment><USER10> Then this might be worth checking out, video: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMNSvHswljM](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DMNSvHswljM)

story: [http://www.wired.com/2014/08/how-to-use-your-cat-to-hack- you...](http://www.wired.com/2014/08/how-to-use-your-cat-to-hack-your- neighbors-wi-fi)

Not sure how you could _not_ find small gps units nowadays. Have a look here, for example: [https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/17](https://www.sparkfun.com/categories/17)

</comment></comment><comment><USER11> I wonder if this will be quick enough to trigger a cat scarer: water spray, high frequency tones or flashy lights

</comment><comment><USER12> related:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4584453](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=4584453)

<comment><USER13> For those who don't care to click links to see what they're about:

       Face detection for cats in JavaScript (github.com)
       80 points by stevewilhelm 1062 days ago | flag | 36 comments</comment></comment>


Launch of "Startup America" (live stream) - <AUTHOR> http://www.whitehouse.gov/live/launch-startup-america <comment><USER2> It is disappointing that Startup Visa did not even get a mention, despite Brad Feld being on the panel.

</comment><comment><USER3> <http://www.whitehouse.gov/issues/startup-america></comment>


NH discussion about HN discussing NH - <AUTHOR> http://www.noticiashacker.com/noticia/ag5ub3RpY2lhc2hhY2tlcnIMCxIEUG9zdBjYlAEM

<comment><USER2> ... Now we have: [http://www.noticiashacker.com/noticia/ag5ub3RpY2lhc2hhY2tlcn...](http://www.noticiashacker.com/noticia/ag5ub3RpY2lhc2hhY2tlcnILCxIEUG9zdBjFdQw)

I may have created a monster.

</comment><comment><USER3> We have a base case and an inductive step.

I think we've proven that English people and Spanish people can talk about anything, interchangeably.

</comment><comment><USER4> Uh oh... we've started to recurse.

</comment><comment><USER5> StackOverflow</comment>


Ask HN: What Was NASA817 Up to over California? - <AUTHOR> It looks like some kind of a search pattern [1], but I can't think of a good reason to do that in a DC-8.<p>[1] https://flightaware.com/live/flight/NASA817/history/20190722/1800Z/KPMD/KBOI <comment><USER2> geographically, wildfire surveillance? atmospheric chemistry monitoring? just speculation...</comment>


Using Spotlight from the OS X Commandline - <AUTHOR> http://0xfe.blogspot.com/2006/03/using-spotlight-from-os-x-commandline.html

<comment><USER2> I am very fond of the Mac, but the developers of Spotlight and the recent Versions feature of OS X Lion have not given proper thought to users' security and privacy.

Spotlight peeks inside files to create an index, and Version-supported apps maintain a changelog of file diffs. These OS X features save data in hidden locations, separate from the file.

This means that:

(a) it is very difficult to delete a file and be certain it's really gone,

(b) you can't have a public area, a private area, and a highly confidential area on the same system; it's all commingled to the same level of privacy,

(c) you can't make a backup of the non-confidential files without risk of getting the confidential files too,

(d) pieces of an encrypted file (if you use TrueCrypt for example) might get saved unencrypted in Spotlight's and Version's hidden locations,

I could go on, but you get the idea. It breaks down the notion of a file having a distinct level of security or privacy, and doesn't replace it with a better notion.

We _already_ had the following problems:

(1) deleting a file doesn't really remove it on any major OS, including OS X, unless you use a special shredding program, and these days even shredding may be ineffective on solid-state drives because of wear-leveling and caching,

(2) the swap space can contain pieces of a file,

(3) temporary files created by editors, word processors, and other apps might retain parts of file.

Now Spotlight and Versions make the problem even worse for Mac users who care strongly about privacy and security.

We're getting to the point--or probably well past the point--where you have to maintain at least 2 or 3 separate systems: one for public work, another for personal or private work, and a third for highly confidential work.

<comment><USER3> You can easily exclude folders or disks from spotlight indexing.

System Preferences -> Spotlight -> privacy tab

to overwrite then delete the spotlight indices, disable spotlight then overwrite and delete:

       $ sudo srm --simple -rf /.Spotlight-V100/

There's also whole disk encryption (unfortunately not particularly robust -- I don't understand the reason but something about how the login password is stored seems to make this somewhat weak to eg the government) built in, as well as encrypted disk images and truecrypt.

<comment><USER2> I do know how to turn off Spotlight, but thank you.

My broader point is that it is becoming impossible to truly delete a file or maintain separation between different parts of your data unless you are _very technical and meticulous_.

How many other features are there in OS X like Spotlight or Versions that we need to be aware of?

The OS should be designed so that we don't need to be constantly on guard for these privacy gotchas.

<comment><USER4> I would argue that disabling Spotlight indexing for a particular folder isn't that technical, the UI for it is very simple. Of course, realising that you should do this perhaps requires a more technical mind! Overall though the point remains (swap, SSDs, etc), and is quite scary.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER5> It's nice to have access to such UI components from the command line.

One of my favorite is pbpaste/pbcopy.

What's yours?

<comment><USER6> `open` is very convenient to… open things (see `man open`).

Tip: `open .` opens the current directory in the Finder.

<comment><USER7> Another tip:

        open vnc://[user@]host[:port]

connects as _user_ to _host_ on _port_ with Screen Sharing, and, more generally, "open URL" works for any URL scheme registered with Launch Services, including, but not limited to, the obvious ones.

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER8> Seems like

alias locate='mdfind'

is in order (on my system).

<comment><USER7> mdfind is basically orthogonal to locate (doesn't match individual files inside packages; handles wildcards differently), but it does produce find(1)-compatible output, which is nice:

<http://jasomill.at/mdfind-dired.el>

</comment></comment><comment><USER9> On my mac command+space switches the input mapping. Just sayin'

<comment><AUTHOR> I'm interested in accessing this programmatically, of course. I've been thinking a lot about "Memex" lately, and the Spotlight index could be a very good engine for that.</comment></comment>


OpenBSD 2014 Fundraising Campaign at $146 000 - <AUTHOR> http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2014.html Just a little bit missing :) <comment><AUTHOR> Don't forget to donate:

[http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2014.html](http://www.openbsdfoundation.org/campaign2014.html)

Thanks!</comment>


Mozilla Firefox to Enable Hyperlink Ping Tracking by Default - <AUTHOR> https://www.bleepingcomputer.com/news/software/mozilla-firefox-to-enable-hyperlink-ping-tracking-by-default/ <comment><USER2> The ping attribute replaces redirects and JavaScript that already allow (and are very widely used for) less performant ways of doing exactly the same tracking.

An explicit ping attribute makes it easier for content blockers; with a redirect there's nothing you can do but with a declarative attribute it's clear what to block.

This seems very clearly better to me.

<comment><USER3> Does anyone want the ping attribute?

It seems like JS-based trackers using sendBeacon are the better option for analytics.

<comment><USER4> Yes.

I implement these kinds of trackers, and right now, my choices look like this:

1\. Use a redirect:

        link

However this is difficult to implement securely, so most people don't. It's also ugly: The user sees tracking urls in the URL bar and each need to load in turn, redirecting to the final target.

2\. Use JavaScript:

        link

This seems to be your suggestion. This requires JavaScript and the JavaScript could be doing other things, like a global mousedown handler which could interfere with it. Many tracking "solutions" have to be carefully written to avoid this kind of interference, which makes development hard to implement as well. The risk is that people's websites' break.

3\. Use CSS:

This "works" but it's sneaky, and it's even more likely that multiple tracking "solutions" will interfere with each other using this method. It might also break the publisher's site if they intended the selector for another purpose.

4\. Use ping:

        link

Now looking at all four options, I'd _definitely_ much rather use ping= because (a) it's likely to be implemented correctly, (b) it's unlikely to break other scripts/styles on the page, and (c) it's not sneaky; the effects are implementation are transparent.

However I appreciate to some people "anyone" might not include the people who write the content you're reading -- after all, if you don't care about them, then _surely_ there isn't "anyone" who wants this, but this is immature. These are most certainly people, and these are the people that want this: People who know about other methods and have thought about the risk/reward of using them.

<comment><USER5> I absolutely think the ping attribute is preferable, but several of your solutions are to avoid conflicting with other tracking solutions that are in place already. How would you address that with ping attributes?

<comment><USER4> The ping attribute stores a space-separated list of urls.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER6> _> "We don't believe that offering an option to disable this feature alone will have any meaningful improvement in the user privacy, since website can (and often already do) detect the various supported mechanisms for hyperlink auditing in each browser and disabling the more user friendly mechanisms will cause them to fall back to the less user friendly ones, without actually disabling the hyperlink auditing functionality itself."_

Sites that wanted to track have always been tracking clicks on links on their pages using JavaScript or redirection pages that first record the click and then send the browser to the destination that the user wanted to go to. Ping is just a better way for sites to implement tracking, and if more sites move to this, the easier it'll be to block (like uBlock Origin has already done). In conjunction with other Firefox extensions that thwart "traditional" click tracking, we can cover everything.

I find Mozilla's (and Apple's) position on enabling this by default tenable, because we certainly don't want sites to block Firefox for this reason or tell users to use another browser (with euphemisms like) "for a better experience". On this point, I think Brave has cornered itself as a niche browser that sites may start revolting against when it grows.

What is not acceptable from any browser vendor, especially a vendor like Mozilla or Apple that wears privacy on its sleeves, is not having a way to disable this using preferences (visible or something like about:config or defaults). Not everyone may want to trust and install several extensions for things like this. On this, Mozilla has failed (and so has Apple, though I didn't check that in this context).

<comment><USER7> The solution to this is eg a content blocker in safari.

The browser still reports "ping" as usable so no blocking of the user or expensive (resource wise) js alternatives, but when you click the link the URL is evaluated as being blocked and safari does nothing relating to the ping.

This isn't theory, I've tested it and it works.

I don't know enough about blocking capabilities in Firefox to theorise how it would work there.

<comment><USER8> _> This isn't theory, I've tested it and it works._

That only works when the destination URL of the ping is specified as a content blocker rule. Content blockers are too limited to block the ping mechanism itself, so you would need to statically add every single arbitrary tracker URL pattern to the ruleset and hope they don't match a site or resource you want.

<comment><USER7> That is literally my point.

You don't need to "block" the ping functionality (which itself would be come a fingerprinting data point) any more than you need to block xhr/fetch or following 301 redirects (which are also used for the same purposes the ping attribute may be used for)

There are literally dozens of content blockers available for both macOS and iOS and all have extensive block lists of trackers, ad networks, etc. Some also allow you to add custom rules.

That same content blocker will _also_ block XHR/fetch based link tracking that many will just fallback to if ping support is not detected.

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER9> This is clearly wrong. If usability suffers due to tracking implementing this removes a disadvantage of tracking; so it supports tracking. If usability doesn't suffer it still provides a cleaner and simpler way to implement the tracking and also supports tracking.

The only legitimate reason to add this is that if some browsers have it and some don't usability will be better on some browsers than on others.

This is a prisoner's dilemma. Or was.

</comment><comment><USER10> As explained in the article, the same data is already being collected without the use of 'ping', so refusing to support ping is nothing but privacy theater (a la "security theater") --- at the cost of user experience. I'm disappointed to see Brave playing that game.

<comment><USER11> Not supporting it means sites without tracking have better user experience. Now tracking is natively supported, everyone can just start doing tracking without any of the disadvantages.

<comment><USER10> That argument would carry weight if you could point to sites that deliberately avoid outbound link tracking because of the impact on the user experience. I've never heard of any.

<comment><USER12> That's not what GP was saying. They were saying that given two websites, one that doesn't track and one that does, the one that doesn't would have a better user experience as a side effect, which would give it a competitive advantage in this "department" over the one that does track. So, all things being equal, users would choose the one that doesn't track for the simple virtue of it giving them a better experience.

<comment><USER13> This argument appears multiple times in this thread. However, realistically I've never seen a mainstream website that was drastically disadvantaged by their tracking mechanisms. I'm concerned that a lot of the tech savvy people who are making this claim may be working on severely outdated machines for which this makes a difference. With even the cheapest Dell computer sold today, it doesn't really matter, which is why everyone is tracking everywhere. I'm not a huge fan of ping, but the idea that websites are going to choose not to track with JavaScript based on the bad UX on a years old Core 2 Duo is just absurd. The economic incentive you are imagining does not exist, thus ping isn't truly eliminating a critical UX difference between tracked and untracked websites.

TL;DR ITT: "Link auditing / ping will eliminate the disadvantages of tracking!" \- Ad Industry and sites that serve tracking: "What disadvantages?"

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER14> As long as I can turn it off in about:config (and it won't try to automatically change the setting for me without my permission) I don't care if it is on or off by default.

<comment><USER15> In fact, having it on by default is better for people who are privacy conscious. If everyone has it off by default, then no site will implement it. If it's opt-out, the average site is more likely to use it rather than using JS tracking.

It's kind of like Do Not Track. Once IE enabled it by default, every single ad network stopped honoring it.

<comment><USER16> How are ad networks not in violation of the CFAA (computer fraud and abuse act) by not honoring DNT? Surely if I can get in trouble for abusing what a server allows but does not intend then the same should hold true for interactions with a client web browser.

<comment><USER17> DNT arguably ceased to be a reliable symbol of user intention the moment Microsoft turned it on by default.

I doubt Microsoft didn't realize what they were doing would kill DNT acceptance, but they did it anyway to add a bullet point to their feature list.

<comment><USER18> Much like malware protection ceased to be a reliable symbol of user intention the moment Microsoft turned it on by default.

<comment><USER17> Malware protection isn't a signal though, it's an active process of deleting and blocking. No need or even possibility to interpret it.

The analogy in the tracking space would be something like Safari ITP, not DNT.

</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment><comment> X-Istence Maybe now we can get rid of the god-forsaken javascript hell that does link tracking or the multiple bounces between servers before a redirect.

<comment><USER19> (Me, landing on an 'empty' page with NoScipt)

 _" Bye!"_

Life is simpler these days. Others should envy me.

</comment></comment><comment><USER12> From the mdn page on the `a` element, the section on the `ping` attribute says:

> Contains a space-separated list of URLs to which, when the hyperlink is > followed, POST requests with the body PING will be sent by the browser (in > the background). Typically used for tracking.

Does this mean that if I put a proxy between the browser and the internet I can block this kind of requests? (of course at the expense of requests that contain that same body for other reasons, in which case I wonder why they didn't add a specific http request header to clearly mark those requests as pings)

</comment><comment><USER20> Just wanted to say that uMatrix can disable this. Browsers have been anti-user control for so long, we can't rely on them anymore to provide basic configuration even.

</comment><comment><USER21> I was never aware of the ping attribute but now it makes me wonder what was the rationale behind standardising it. Is there any particular legitimate (ie. non-tracking) use for such a feature? It would makes sense, of sorts, if there was a policy regarding the target of the attribute but as far as I can see the browser can ping literally anything.

<comment><USER22> The rationale is that everyone interested has been doing this with redirects (for years) in non standardised and often opaque ways.

So it's better to standardize and make it transparent.

E.g. google search results get rewritten to redirects as soon as you hover over them or press them (and are redirects in the first place with JS off). Have been for at least 8 years now.

</comment></comment><comment><USER23> That's a shame. Now I have to either wait for someone to make an extension to disable hyperpings (so it can sync between all my Firefoxes rather than me having to manually change it every time) or learn to make one myself.

<comment><USER24> uBlock Origin already blocks this feature.

[https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dashboard:-Settings#d...](https://github.com/gorhill/uBlock/wiki/Dashboard:-Settings#disable- hyperlink-auditing)

<comment><USER23> That was a short wait.

<comment><USER2> This isn't a new feature; it was added in Chrome 15 and Safari 6. [https://caniuse.com/#feat=ping](https://caniuse.com/#feat=ping)

</comment></comment></comment></comment><comment><USER25> > Google Chrome, Opera, Microsoft Edge, and Safari enabled hyperlink auditing > pings by default... will no longer allow users to [disable it] in the > future.

</comment><comment><USER26> This is amazing news b/c it will unfuck the link graph. So many shitty content sites link to the outside through an intermediary url which counts clickthroughs and then passes you on with JS. Would love to see that stop

</comment><comment><USER27> Yeah, that's 100% getting disabled for me. What a shame.

</comment><comment><USER28> As much as I hate tracking this is definitely cleaner. I'm sure noscript will block it too.

</comment><comment><USER29> Is this an official statement from Mozilla? If understood right, it says that because every tracking site already does, we will put it inside the browser.

It seems like one day Nike will say, we need to send the location of every step you take, where you're heading and the speed so we can make better shoes. And people just, yes, seems fair to me.

<comment><USER4> It's a little different.

It's more like Nike are fitting their stores with a special floor that track people walking around in the store to figure out where people go and what they find interesting.

There are many vendors of these special floors, and they offer different kinds of reporting to Nike.

At the moment, Nike can't use multiple vendors without careful testing because the floors can potentially interfere with eachother. Sometimes the interactions only occur in extreme cases, such as massively overweight or underweight individuals. Nike may not be floor experts and not know how to to this. It also makes the floor "thicker" with multiple vendors special floors layered on top of each other, which might feel weird walking on.

These vendors don't just sell to Nike, they sell to lots of stores. Obviously they don't share Nike's "data" with ASIC but _each of them_ have to deal with the fact that even if they solve the problem for Nike's chosen set of vendors, they'll have to do it again for ASIC as well.

So, the floor vendors got together and proposed a mechanism whereby they can all work together.

No new privacy leak, no new information is being generated, or even being transmitted to anyone who didn't already have the ability to collect it, but the implementation is simpler, and user experience is better.

<comment><USER12> Or, you can make this "floor tracking" so difficult and circumventable that people start to question it and decide that new pair of shiny shoes doesn't deserve the added hassle of walking in them.

There's that producer of floors that stands against these forms of tracking and says "go to the stores that buy from us, they won't track you!" So this benefits the stores that but from them, the floor maker and the store's patrons.

But this analogy broke down pretty soon this way, didn't it?

</comment></comment></comment><comment><USER30> Does anyone have a handy hyperlink auditing test website to check your current browser?

</comment><comment><USER19> Firefox v52.9.0esr with NoScript, uBlock Origin and whitelist-based security just got a big industry boost.

Good going, Mozilla!

</comment><comment><USER31> This is asinine. What is the point of a symphony of holistic privacy initiatives like the GDPR cookie policies on websites and a so-called "privacy browser" if the browser people inconsistently move away from opt-in to opt-out and sell-out their users?

</comment><comment><USER32> This feature allows a trivial DDOS attack to be constructed

[https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/83890/hacking/ddos- html...](https://securityaffairs.co/wordpress/83890/hacking/ddos-html- hyperlink-audit-ping.html)

[https://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/341522-hyperlink- auditing-...](https://www.nsaneforums.com/topic/341522-hyperlink-auditing- pings-being-used-to-perform-ddos-attacks/)

you can always downgrade your FF version and turn off auto updates, or go to a custom palemoon, then have a chat with mozilla about why you did so.

<comment><USER10> I (former Firefox developer) do not see how using ping for this sort of attack has any advantage over any of the other myriad ways Javascript running in a browser can generate traffic to a site.

If it does have an advantage, it's probably just something incidental like particular HTTP proxies being configured to let pings through, or something like that.

<comment><USER33> Probably more that certain sites are using serverside XSS filters that allow third party content a elements with ping attributes, but not to inject arbitrary JavaScript.</comment></comment></comment>


Two HTML Standards Diverge in a Wood - <AUTHOR> http://www.webmonkey.com/2012/07/html-groups-part-ways/

<comment><USER3> Technically there is still only one "HTML5" standard; the W3C one.

WHATWG are editing the "HTML Living Standard". Unlike the W3C model, there aren't version numbers or set phases that the spec must go through. Instead there is a process of continuous development; fixing bugs as they are found and continually iterating new features in response to the evolving needs of the web. This process is modeled around the way that browsers are actually developed, and should help innovation on the web keep pace with proprietary platforms.

The goal of the W3C version is somewhat different; it is essentially a branch aimed at stabilisation (likely at the expense of accuracy) in order that there is a well defined set of technologies covered by the W3C Patent Policy. It is also governed by a somewhat different (consensus based) decision making policy compared to the WHATWG version (the editor specs what people are willing to implement). History suggests that any differences that arise are most likely to be in things that don't affect UA interoperability but concern the definition of a valid document.

So the net effect of this change is that we will once again have a version of the HTML spec being developed using the system (and at the speed) that gave us HTML5 in the first place.

</comment><comment><USER4> > Anything is possible, but we remain hopeful that that won't happen, at least > in part because the W3C standard is more of a branch than a fork.

In terms of VCSes, it's essentially a release branch, with "HTML 5" being the eventual endpoint (tag) of it.

<comment><USER5> Well, that's what everybody is hoping for, at least.

The worst-case scenario is that the W3C HTML 5 working group goes wildly astray and writes a horrible standard that nobody implements. Remember HTML 3.0? XHTML 2.0? SMILE 2.0? WS-*?

Standards committees have a tendency to produce 300-page specs where every feature is both optional and vague. The recent OAuth2 rant describes the process perfectly:

[http://hueniverse.com/2012/07/oauth-2-0-and-the-road-to- hell...](http://hueniverse.com/2012/07/oauth-2-0-and-the-road-to-hell/)

So the real fear here is that without Ian Hickson, the W3C may loose sight of the ball. Again. But in that case, I imagine the browser vendors will happily ignore them. Again.

</comment></comment><comment><USER6> We've sort of been through that some 10 years ago, with the XHTML vs. HTML4, which people originally tried to conform to both, then consolidate, then threw XHTML out the window, because practicality beats purity.

History does not exactly repeat, but it rhymes really well.

</comment><comment><USER7> This isn't a problem. W3C is working on _the_ HTML5 standard while WHATWG is working on the "HTML Living Standard" or what you might call HTML-HEAD or HTML6-beta. <http://www.whatwg.org/specs/web-apps/current-work/multipage/>

</comment><comment><USER8> This sounds a lot scarier than in actually is. It is highly unlikely that one vendor will stick with the W3C and another with the WHATWG. (Yeah, I care more about what vendors will do than what standards bodies do.) I think cross- browser compatibility will keep increasing, as it is doing right now. (The three way split in market share helps.)

</comment><comment><USER9> >What some developers fear is that down the road the two >specs will diverge in significant ways and HTML will become >a messy set of forked standards and varying browser support >that lands us back in the bad old days of IE 6

This is what I'm worried about myself, but I'd like to think that anyone involved with either parties would work together to ensure that it didn't.

</comment><comment><USER10> Hard to believe that they really decided that this is the best way to go forward given all the HTML standard troubles we already have and had in the past.

</comment><comment><USER11> This must be killed RIGHT NOW.

<comment><USER12> Why?

</comment></comment><comment><USER13> This sort of process does more damage to technological innovation than almost anything else I can think of (besides the music and film industry). Look at the state of Unix for example. A free, powerful operating system should be a no brainer for anyone. Until you ask yourself a few basic questions, like which flavour, and religious wars break out.

If Unix or Linux could have limited itself to a far smaller subset, it would likely have taken over the world by now.

This is why the world needs people like Bill Gates, Steve Jobs, Linus et al.

I shudder when I think of the type of damage this sort of thing can do to HTML and web technology.

<comment><USER14> _If Unix or Linux could have limited itself to a far smaller subset, it would likely have taken over the world by now._

Uhm, Unix and Linux do own the world. Desktop PCs are an anomaly in the computing world: phones, servers, TVs, tablets, networking gear, supercomputers, multimedia players, many GPS devices, are all predominantly running Unix or Unix-like.

 _I shudder when I think of the type of damage this sort of thing can do to HTML and web technology._

Breaks to the standard web technologies have brought us, among others:

\- JPEG support (Netscape)

\- File uploads (Netscape)

\- Javascript (Netscape)

\- AJAX/XMLHttpRequest (IE)

\- Canvas (Apple's Webkit)

\- nofollow links (Google)

They can be problematic if they're proprietary (i.e. ActiveX), but they're not necessarily bad.

<comment><USER13> \- Which Unix or Linux would that be?

\- Interesting that you think desktop computing is an anomaly. I must have imagined the whole PC revolution thing then...

\- Also interesting that you think that the current split in HTML5 standards is going to lead to good things. Care to explain how?

<comment><USER14> _Which Unix or Linux would that be?_

It's not which. It's Unix and Linux as a whole.

 _Interesting that you think desktop computing is an anomaly. I must have imagined the whole PC revolution thing then..._

Apparently you don't know what anomaly means.

 _Also interesting that you think that the current split in HTML5 standards is going to lead to good things. Care to explain how?_

That's not what I said, you're putting words in my mouth. I said it's not _necessarily bad_.

But personally, I trust Mozilla and Opera; if they felt the creation of the WHATWG was important for the development of web technologies, then it's a good thing as far as I'm concerned.

<comment><USER13> Ok at the risk of being further down voted, I am going to have 1 more crack at this.

 _It's not which. It's Unix and Linux as a whole._

This is exactly my point, I don't believe there is a Unix or Linux as a whole. Sure, there are Unix-like and Linux-like OS's out there and if you know 1 then you can easily adapt to using another. That is the point, you have to adapt. That is why unified standards are a good thing, you ideally only have to develop once.

 _Uhm, Unix and Linux do own the world. Desktop PCs are an anomaly in the computing world_

I know exactly what anomaly means. We are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I would argue that before the Desktop PC revolution, computing was niche and elitist. Desktop PC's opened the world of computing to everyone and hugely accelerated the take-up and rate of innovation in all things computing. Additionally this Desktop PC revolution was driven by IBM, Intel and Microsoft, not Unix/Linux.

 _But personally, I trust Mozilla and Opera; if they felt the creation of the WHATWG was important for the development of web technologies, then it's a good thing as far as I'm concerned._

I am not going to argue this one as I am not going to be seen as bad mouthing Mozilla or Opera, especially as I am a huge fan of Firefox and have great respect for both companies. Perhaps I am just old and scared of change but I fail to see how forking or branching HTML5 standards can possibly be a good thing. Browsing and HTLML5 in particular is an important foundation in future development and I just hate to see standards possibly diverging in this.

<comment><USER14> _This is exactly my point, I don't believe there is a Unix or Linux as a whole. Sure, there are Unix-like and Linux-like OS's out there and if you know 1 then you can easily adapt to using another. That is the point, you have to adapt. That is why unified standards are a good thing, you ideally only have to develop once._

I fear the stagnation caused by lack of competition much more than the adaption required to move from Linux to BSD or MacOSX, but to each his own. We've seen what happens when there's only one browser in town; an OS has the potential of being much worse.

 _I know exactly what anomaly means. We are just going to have to agree to disagree on this one. I would argue that before the Desktop PC revolution, computing was niche and elitist. Desktop PC's opened the world of computing to everyone and hugely accelerated the take-up and rate of innovation in all things computing. Additionally this Desktop PC revolution was driven by IBM, Intel and Microsoft, not Unix/Linux._

There's nothing to disagree with, it's a fact. Desktop PC were "a deviation from the common rule, type, arrangement, or form" in that they didn't use a UNIX/-like OS.

I agree that they opened the world of computing to everyone and etc, but that's irrelevant to my point.

 _I am not going to argue this one as I am not going to be seen as bad mouthing Mozilla or Opera, especially as I am a huge fan of Firefox and have great respect for both companies. Perhaps I am just old and scared of change but I fail to see how forking or branching HTML5 standards can possibly be a good thing. Browsing and HTLML5 in particular is an important foundation in future development and I just hate to see standards possibly diverging in this._

We probably wouldn't _have_ an HTML5 standard if it wasn't for the WHATWG fork; Mozilla and Opera proposed the W3C - who were caught on XHTML 2.0 - <USER2> continue the work in HTML and they were shut down, so they formed a new group and did it themselves.</comment></comment></comment></comment></comment></comment>