Subject: bug#74218: [PATCH] Ask confirmation before sending region to search engine.

From: Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2024 13:56:00 +0200

> From: Fabio Natali <[email-masked]>
> Cc: [email-masked], [email-masked], [email-masked]
> Date: Thu, 07 Nov 2024 11:29:37 +0000
> 
> On 2024-11-07, 13:05 +0200, Eli Zaretskii <[email-masked]> wrote:
> > My take on it is that the user might not realize that the region is
> > very large and includes parts she didn't intend to send.  IOW, a
> > cockpit error.
> 
> It's not only that. Commands can be typed by mistake. The fact that the
> command's docstring warns about its effects is not enough.
> 
> By default, 'eww-search-words' is bound to 'M-s M-w'. The probability of
> accidentally mistyping that combination is not at all negligible. I did
> discover the command's beheaviour via view-lossage after mistyping 'M-s
> M-w', for example.

Those are still "cockpit errors", aren't they?

Did it happen to you that you typed incorrect phrase into a browser's
search window?  Does a browser always unconditionally ask you whether
you really meant that?

> One might argue that, no matter how long, all sequences of keys and
> commands could be mistyped, but that'd be a bit misleading. I think that
> adding a warning and a yes-or-no confirmation request would make
> 'eww-search-words' sufficiently safe, that's the assumption behind my
> patch.

You ask a valid question, but don't answer it.  Indeed, why would we
treat this particular command differently from others?  "Would be
misleading" doesn't provide an answer to the question; instead, it
seems to claim that the question itself is invalid.  Why is it?

> As I said above, I don't think that the sensitivity of a block of text
> is a function of its length. Case in point, a password, an address, any
> piece of Personally Identifiable Information.

Is this the only command which sends user-typed text to the Internet?
I don't think so: the first example I could think about is sending
email.  Do we ask the user for confirmation each time the user types
the command to send a message?  Why not, and how is this command
different, in the general sense?

> Users can always override the default and might decide to customise
> 'eww-search-words' as they like - but I still think it's important to
> provide a safe default, something safer than what we have today.

I'm asking why requesting a confirmation in every case is a reasonable
default.  It is safe, I agree, but it is also annoying in many cases.