[X4U] Re: Re: Leopard Issues - Some Responses (Stroller)

[Robert Ameeti]

At 11:57 AM -0500, 12/5/07, Jon Warms wrote:

>Domain guessing, as I understood it, simply added "www" and ".com" 
>to each incomplete url, before the net even saw that.

Then you've understood it incorrectly.

As I've stated, it would be wrong of a browser to do that. Or for the 
computer to do that. A network administrator might want the computer 
to go to their 'jr' server when the user types 'jr' into the browser. 
If the browser or the computer decided that it should be allowed to 
add the www or the .com to the url, things would break. The user 
would never be able to get to the 'jr' server. The computer needs to 
be able to go to where it wants to go or else to receive an error 
message that where it wants to go is not possible. Then and only then 
should the browser or computer be able to decide to perhaps append 
additional information and try again. When Verizon is returning 
information that was not asked of them, they are wrong. You didn't 
ask for the Search page, they gave it to you without your permission.

>As I now understand it, one of two things happened when the browser 
>saw an incomplete url.

The browser does not recognize 'jr' as an incomplete URL. It knows 
nothing about the validity of a URL. The 'jr' URL may be entirely 
valid on any network where the administrator creates a server named 
'jr'. The browser may instead receive a response from DNS servers 
that the URL requested returns an error. What the browser does with 
that error message is another issue that it did not get in this case. 
Your browser did not get an error message of a bad URL and it did not 
then ask Verizon to respond back with Verizon's Search page.

>Either it a) recognized the url as incomplete

It can't. The browser doesn't know right from wrong. That is not its job.

>  and immediately fixed it

The browser can ask again after it gets an error message.

>  or b) submitted the incomplete url to the router,

It doesn't submit it to the router, it submits it to the DNS server.

>  and when it failed, fixed the url.

Yes, but no failure was returned. Only the IP address of the Verizon 
Search page and thus, that was what the Browser then displayed.

>  I had thought (a) was what happened, but maybe (b) was; either way, 
>the browser now never fixes the url but keeps trying for a valid 
>result. Why do you sit back and tell me this is the master's 
>decision and I should just relax and enjoy it?

If the browser isn't getting an error message from Verizon, how can 
it 'fix' it? If Verizon gives back the IP address of the Verizon 
Search page, the browser knows nothing about that page not being the 
one that you wanted and as such, it asks the Verizon server for that 
pages info and then displays it. The browser did nothing wrong.
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Robert Ameeti

The modem is the message.
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