Monday, September 14, 2015

Website design and security use of script blocking.

The Mozilla Firefox browser has available an addon, "NoScript" which is used by millions for security purposes while accessing websites.

Politicians whose websites have facebook.com and twitter.com activity, of some sort, in addition to the main website, are not being as user friendly as they might. And an expectation of such an aim and interest in being as user friendly as possible in anyone wanting my vote seems reasonable to me.

Having by a waiver allowed all scripts from the base website:

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/

in the hope that such a waiver of the protective addon's utilitization would allow, finally, access to the top left hamburger menu button [why not use an easily explored top menu bar?], i.e., here

https://www.hillaryclinton.com/#menu

and not gaining that access, was I impressed? Go figure.

I have no idea what a couple of those other sites NoScript identified were designed to enable and/or track, but, hey, if you don't care to make it sensible to see the website, I suppose I really do not need to see it, liking Bernie and all.

hrc.onl?

gepmihl?

Who are they? I did recognize twitter.com and facebook.com, among the others; and was unimpressed.

Those noted two? They look like malware to me, or else spyware to track who is looking at the candidate site, and then possibly what subsequent sites such a person accesses next. Possibly that's right. Possibly wrong. But just let the thing be. The web is full of other more user friendly sites. Pass that particular hummer up, move on, but remember the site access difficulty, where, after all, it is not as if I wanted access to anyone's private family email.

UPDATE: Gaps in email totaling five months? Should I care? The safe bet, somebody will care enough to bellyache over it publicly, to any mainstream media paying attention. Sure, there will be a few flaky ill-respected websites which might try to gin up some disrespect. Sites of questionable merit. Such as this one:

The gap in emails received by Clinton run from Jan. 21, 2009, when she became secretary of state, to March 17, 2009. The gaps in emails sent by Clinton from from Jan. 21, 2009, to April 12, 2009, and from Dec. 30, 2012, to Feb. 1, 2013.

Judicial Watch said the revelation of the email gap casts doubt on whether Clinton told the truth when she declared under oath, “I have directed that all of my emails on clintonemail.com in my custody that were or potentially or potentially [sic] were federal records be provided to the Department of State.”

Judicial Watch obtained that statement, made in response to a court order, in separate FOIA litigation.

If something noteworthy in State Department activity during the gap periods was happening, that particular web item declined to examine the question, or if examined, it went unreported by that outlet. They did further note (while again tooting their horn):

The email gap was revealed in documents obtained under court order in the FOIA lawsuit against the Department of State originally filed by Judicial Watch on May 6, 2013.

The documents also revealed for the first time the private email account that top Clinton aide Cheryl Mills apparently used to conduct government business, cherylmills@gmail.com

How such stuff might fit into a general scheme of things remains unreported in any cogent analysis. It's just thrown against the wall by that website, and it is unclear if anything will stick.