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cc-metadata - [cc-metadata] referrer-enhanced deeds

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Subject: discussion of the Creative Commons Metadata work

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  • From: Mike Linksvayer <ml AT creativecommons.org>
  • To: cc-metadata AT lists.ibiblio.org
  • Subject: [cc-metadata] referrer-enhanced deeds
  • Date: Wed, 31 Aug 2005 15:22:53 -0700

Pretend that http://example.com has a link to
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.5/

When someone clicks on that link, typically the user agent sends
http://example.com as the referrer. The CC server could get the content
at the referrer and alter deed presentation based on that content
(including metadata found there), e.g., if it looks like primarily audio
content, the deed could be tweaked accordingly -- I had to hardcode one
such tweak, see
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/2.0/deed-music -- among
many other possibilities, I want to avoid ever creating a custom deed
url like that again.

Is there something horribly wrong with the idea of getting the referrer
url? With potentially changing the deed based on content found there?

The obvious downside is that a slow/dead host pointed at by the referrer
will slow down deed rendering, but I don't know if that is a serious
issue--if slow, it's "just" a continuation of an already bad user
experience, as the user's browser already presumably slowly retrieved
the content that links to a CC deed, while the dead host case is
unlikely, as the user's browser never got the page linking to the deed
in the first place.

I'm sure someone will say this is a vector for denial of service
attacks, but then wouldn't directly attacking the linking page be more
effective? The CC server will of course have to do a little caching and
throttling.

Thoughts?

--
Mike Linksvayer
http://creativecommons.org/about/people#21





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