RE: [bug #57884] wget reveals my operating system to the server

[Seymour J Metz]

Which raises far more serious security concerns than reporting browser 
capabilities.


--
Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz
http://mason.gmu.edu/~smetz3

________________________________________
From: Bug-wget [bug-wget-bounces+smetz3=address@hidden] on behalf of Bruno 
Haible [address@hidden]
Sent: Monday, February 24, 2020 6:42 AM
To: address@hidden; Tim Ruehsen
Cc: bug-wget
Subject: Re: [bug #57884] wget reveals my operating system to the server

address@hidden wrote:
> I wonder about the reason given: "To avoid compatibility issues."
> That was - if I recall correctly - the reason for having the string
> to start with: So that servers can format pages to suit the capabilities
> of the browser and version used.

That was how web applications were written 15-20 years ago. 10 years ago, the
browser capabilities are queried by the JavaScript toolkit [1][2]. Nowadays,
they prefer feature detection in JavaScript.

Bruno

[1] 
https://secure-web.cisco.com/1yxilmEYA0e_5D6kvA8W5Cqm4kLz7h7_Ye2VnfxQYqkm9N5qlYZSFt6ngcSYQysbe7ePDJeVOpzlAGq44PHRXdWMlXd6AozIn2B-QQ00LfnnlSynWCurXgcAyVxpnW-4s70vww8NvO8jBboJnb0vcvOoY4Rx_k9ak4zmgPbkDkmRc5OF5X7GXC5Sllh9M_A89zAoTeJ4Q5aHOU5M7io_xkP2-SV1t67Emos6BKN0Eixj9mejKPe27JFKXBVpgIzeXquux9HMR3XLEHe67qd5ojjG8LDkYJmPldP9JAz31DHH-WIJBk3RKoX6JyvOjzZjYCCw8itfdbd_0tS5m157ff-kv08SLGrOIQgjexjO7_zyer_-ihCJubx7krfmWMXGk8wwusXzNU3LtVCyYfDWC5cDJcGIpEP5GQ79aB23QXwkcLkZUEu03lkFPOXOPVWpY/https%3A%2F%2Fdojotoolkit.org%2Freference-guide%2F1.7%2Fquickstart%2Fbrowser-sniffing.html
[2] 
https://secure-web.cisco.com/1cdYJDVpsOUXTFN9ygkgkR4_DBO4vlgE2j2QphPYaQgLlsortmJpgrLdRCbCoQgTsynxSE5GISz85Qp1ck_jjAz0M4hrOQ5CHKVoXqtu11b50PX3AoxjXLI2VeCC_8_G5GHMYQxp32nRo5PYUX3yHcmHZYRjut_xzl7nWNWc4Eb0adTaI1r3raH9dBt1y_yn14Uk5U1Z27FhC_0DLCHG0Hx-mTj4tawa4dcVTUYfG8kXPHWqbvCzOQnITtFd7SCeJhHqcaM88nnVPn6MgmzAYnFkRQYgnj02brU4ODRHpIxCKd9oXc6J9gDoAB7dXs8SDxiLCrd3cyd_fbDRf8BlAlMg8xWvED1-4LV3Juv0xMN-4NIh6W3uBRoAdr6fI0iPO_WoaitaKdbrc852h-5hTjf6bXX7foXMoI8-iGl5IravBl05HyOXrugDaZ8rQ1VlD/https%3A%2F%2Fapi.jquery.com%2FjQuery.browser%2F