[8064] in www-talk@info.cern.ch
Re: Shopping baskets (was: Session tracking)
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Dmitry Mishin)
Thu Apr 27 10:03:15 1995
Date: Thu, 27 Apr 1995 10:01:11 +0500
Errors-To: procmaster@www19.w3.org
Reply-To: ptitz@dux.ru
From: Dmitry Mishin <ptitz@dux.ru>
To: Multiple recipients of list <www-talk@www10.w3.org>
>
> I don't think HTTP, with or without cookies, will ever be suitable for
> electronic shopping. In the physical world, products are scarce, and
> when one customer puts it in his basket, nobody else can get it
> anymore. You need not just a stateful protocol, but a permanent
> connection: if the customer leaves the shop without paying, then you
> can put the product back on the shelf. A magic cookie is like an
> indefinite claim: if the customer is allowed to take it home with him,
> you'll never know if he's planning to buy it eventually or not.
I think timeouts, when client have timeout error and need to
repeat operation, while server successfully complete this, is more
dangerous. Formally one can use session-id or cookie for ignoring same
operation from same client, but such protocol seems too weak for operations
with money or something similar.
D.
