[clue-tech] HTTP method specifications

[Jed S. Baer]

On Fri, 25 Nov 2005 14:22:31 -0700
Matt Gushee wrote:

> Jed S. Baer wrote:
> 
> > So, I'm looking for a good description of how the HTTP post
> > specification works. Something other than the W3C RFC.
> 
> ? Last I heard there was no such thing as a W3C RFC. Do you mean the
> IETF RFC (which I suppose might be mirrored at w3c.org) or some other
> W3C doc?
> 
> But I guess it isn't all that important which specific docs you *don't*
> want. But when you say "how the ... specification works," do you really
> mean a more in-depth discussion of the specification itself, or are you
> talking about implementations? In which case the answers are probably
> buried somewhere in the vastness of Apache and/or PHP docs.
> 
> In any case, I wonder if a better understanding of POST per se is really
> what you need. It seems like your real problem is a higher-level (dare I
> say semantic?) one. POST is just a way for the server to receive an
> "entity" (AKA document) containing various parameters, and it seems to
> me the issue is how to detect badly-behaving users based on the values
> of those parameters.

Well ... wonderful wording on my part. My hypothesis at this point is that
some twit(s) is simply sending up a mime-encapsulated SMTP envelope as
POST data. So I need two things. 1) how to get access to the raw POST
data, and 2) sufficient info on how POST data is (supposed to be)
implemented to be able to take it apart. Might be that it's simple enough
that I can just look at it and see what's there. Might be that I'm
approaching it from the wrong end too. The PHP $_POST array isn't useful
for this, as it's contents are post- processing by PHP.

The W3C does have HTTP RFCs at http://www.w3.org/Protocols/#Specs but I
don't know if they're from the IETF or the W3C. Typically, I find that I
don't get along with RFCs, so I tend to read them only as a last resort.

Yes, the high-level goal is to detect badly-behaving users. But it helps
if I can see better what they're doing.

jed
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