Mozilla Follow-Up

Fri, Nov 22, 2002 with tags old

Okay, so I tried to contact these people and the addresses bounced, go figure. Here is the followup email that I just sent to their techsupport and evaluation@iit.edu.

This is a followup to a phone call I just had with your technical
support people.  The first issue is that of email addresses on this
page:

http://iit.ecollege.com/pubinclude/ErrMessaging.asp?Error_Type=13&LTID=A&ClientID=&ClientString=&URL=A%5FPSH%2Ereal&browser=Netscape&version=5

It tells me to email techsupport@realed.com, but this is the response
that I receive:

> From: System Administrator <postmaster@ecollege.com>
> To: patrick@dreams.wagstrom.net
> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:43:24 -0700
> Subject: Undeliverable: Browser Support
>
> Your message
>
>   To:      evaluation@iit.edu; techsupport@realed.com
>   Subject: Browser Support
>   Sent:    Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:43:39 -0700
>
> did not reach the following recipient(s):
>
> techsupport@realeducation.com on Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:43:24 -0700
>     The recipient name is not recognized
>       The MTS-ID of the original message is: c=US;a= ;p=Real
> Education;l=PIKESPEAK0211221643XL4DKD7W
>     MSEXCH:IMS:Real Education:sundance:PIKESPEAK 0 (000C05A6) Unknown
> Recipient

It's clear to see that the problem resides on your side, as it got to
postmaster@ecollege.com and then bounced.  Please fix this error as soon
as possible.

Secondly is the larger issue of browser support, here is the original
email that I tried to send to you regarding browser support.

> From: Patrick Wagstrom <wagspat@iit.edu>
> To: evaluation@iit.edu, techsupport@realed.com
> Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002 09:43:39 -0700
> Subject: Browser Support
>
> As a person who cares both about my personal security and the quality of
> my software, I am more than a little surprised at your lack of support
> for Mozilla based browsers on the IIT evaluation site.  Despite the fact
> that it has been shown that Mozilla (the engine on which newer netscape
> browsers are based) is the most robust and standards compliant web
> browser available.  Even looking at the chart I am referred to at:
>
> http://hotwired.lycos.com/webmonkey/reference/browser_chart/
>
> it inidicates that Mozilla 1.0 and 1.1 support all of the features that
> would be required of an HTML page.  This leaves people who use Unix
> based systems in a quandry.  Either downgrade their software, or use a
> buggy commercial browser (see http://www.iit.edu/~wagspat/exploittest.html)
> that has the possibility to execute code without my asking.
>
> I would like to know the reason for the lack of support for Mozilla
> based browsers.
>
> Thank You,
>
> Patrick Wagstrom

The conversation that I had with your help desk representative was
moderately helpful, and he explained that you hadn't tested support for
anything beyond Netscape 4.x.  While I understand the need to QA
material, I also feel the need to inform you of the substantial minority
at technical Universities, such as IIT, that use Linux as their
operating system, and thus probably also use a Mozilla based browser.
Yet when I went to call technical support I was only given the option of
being a Mac or a Windows user.

Not daunted, and being secure in the fact that I run a standards
compliant browser, I hit the button on the afformentioned page, that
said try logging anywya.  Only to be presented with a 404/Not Found
error from your webserver as it attempts to access this page:

http://iit.ecollege.com/A_PSH.real?ClientID=577661&ClientString=iit&47wagspat

I'm finding this whole thing a little disturbing.

Also, why isn't such information encrypted over transit?  We are
transmitting personal information on the login page, yet it is not
secure.  This is more than a little disturbing.

I've attached the error page.  The graphics are broken on it when I look
at it on the server too, and the links for email addresses aren't mailto
links like they should be, instead they take me to yet another 404/Not
Found page.

I'm trying to be very patient here, but some of this seems to be just
outright negligence.  I've attached the page it gives me as an error.

Peace,

Patrick