2004-08-24 22:28 UTC Strange spam to W3C lists
I keep seeing very odd messages be sent to W3C lists (which are very frequent targets for spammers due to the likelyhood of the W3C site being crawled for e-mail addresses). An example of one arrived earlier today.
Strange things to notice: The body makes sense at first glance, but then seems rather weird when you read it carefully. A very similar message was sent back in May. Both messages have the same large quotation and then have a link to a site that is probably hoping for increased Google rankings. Today's, for example, links to a site that looks very innocent but contains a link to a page containing a lot of links to porn sites. Both e-mails have the same from name but very different addresses. Both are cross-posted to two very unrelated lists. Today's has a very odd attachment — very odd, that is, if you don't notice the numerous links to porn sites hidden within. And so forth.
I'm thinking that HTML should have an element that basically says "content within this section may contain links from external sources; just because they are here does not mean we are endorsing them" which Google could then use to block Google rank whoring. I know a bunch of people being affected by Web log spam would jump at that chance to use this element if it was put into a spec.
If anyone from Google thinks this is worth considering, let me know as soon as possible. WHAT WG is coming up with lots of HTML extensions, so now's the time to discuss it.
Speaking of which, we added the first draft of the <canvas> element to the Web Apps 1.0 draft proposal specification the other day. It's mostly based on what Apple did, with some changes suggested by various people.
That spec also finally defines the window object which people have been using for years without it ever being seen in anything resembling a spec. Over the next few weeks I expect I'll be adding things like window.location to it, if I can work out exactly how that should work when you set it!
This is all in response to the hundreds of great technical comments we've been getting in response to the WHATWG announcements. I'm slowly making my way through them; at the moment I have another 175 or so to reply to.
I expect we'll be publishing another Web Forms call for comments soon (not that much has changed since last time, but enough has changed that it needs another review, I think). Similarly, Web Apps 1.0 will get a call for comments in a few weeks for the first round of public review. The stuff in that draft is obviously much less stable and very much up in the air, especially some of the more amusing stuff like the menu and tab ideas. I like the general concepts we have, but their execution is currently a little messy. How much they change probably depends on how much backwards-compatibility we're willing to sacrifice.
As always, comments are very welcome at all times.