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Re: SSL/TLS support using Windows SSPI Schannel API

From: Marc Hoersken <info_at_marc-hoersken.de>
Date: Mon, 16 Apr 2012 12:38:17 +0200

2012/4/16 Steve Holme <steve_holme_at_hotmail.com>
> > We may also need to think about a privacy issue here, because
> > the first line is actually used as the HTTP user-agent and now
> > reveals the Windows version. The first two numbers of the SSPI
> > DLL version indicate the Windows NT version number, in this case
> > NT 6.1 == Windows 7.
>
> That's a very valid point, however, don't most web browsers do this?
>
> For example:
>
> Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; MSIE 9.0; Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; Trident/5.0)
> Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1; WOW64; rv:11.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/11.0

Yes, but that does not mean that libcurl, as a general purpose URL
library, needs to do it. I think that is something the application
developer needs to decide and not we. I don't think libcurl should
automatically give away too much information which is actually not
needed. For browsers it also makes sence to report the operating
system, because that might have effects on rendering and such, but for
libcurl it really doesn't matter that the webserver knows the OS
version.

Best regards,
Marc
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Received on 2012-04-16