X-Clacks-Overhead

FYI - no need to prefix your custom header with X- !

> Historically, designers and implementers of application protocols have often distinguished between standardized and unstandardized parameters by prefixing the names of unstandardized parameters with the string "X-" or similar constructs. In practice, that convention causes more problems than it solves. Therefore, this document deprecates the convention for newly defined parameters with textual (as opposed to numerical) names in application protocols.

https://datatracker.ietf.org/doc/html/rfc6648

I have been guilty of adding a custom header to all of my emails: "Yo-Momma: Fat". For years. In a professional setting. Nobody noticed.

There's a list of sites broadcasting X-Clacks-Overhead: https://xclacksoverhead.org/listing/the-signal

I miss Terry Pratchett. Just a good guy, writing joyful books. None of that "gritty realism" here. There's only about 40 books by him, so I read 2 a year. By the time I get to 40, I figure I would have forgotten the first few and I can start again.

My blog has had this header since the day he died.

There are Chrome and Firefox extensions to indicate the presence of the header.

https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/clacks-overhead-gnu...

https://addons.mozilla.org/en-US/firefox/addon/x-clacks-over...

stackoverflow.com and all stack exchange sites also include X-Clacks-Overhead in the response thanks to yours truly

I think strictly speaking any node on the network which receives the header should forward it on. So if your browser ever sees it, it should use it for all HTTP requests from that point. And if a server ever receives it, it should pass it to all clients.

Honeypots are advertising that header as well nowadays:

https://www.shodan.io/search/report?query=x-clacks-overhead

Most of the non-honeypot results are for the Gargoyle Router Management interface exposed by Korea Telecom:

https://www.shodan.io/search/report?query=x-clacks-overhead+...

The results have increased significantly over time:

https://trends.shodan.io/search?query=x-clacks-overhead

I am all for goofy headers. Its especially fun when randomly stumbling into it.

> But sometimes small, unnecessary things are exactly what make the internet better.

Or, worse? I don't think this is the point you're wanting to make but it's not always the case that it's better.

I had that header set back when I ran my blog on my own HTTP server. Probably should spend some Cloudflare worker cycles to put it back now that it’s purely static…

GNU Terry Pratchett

"A man never truly dies until the his name is no longer spoken."

Is this possibly an intentional reference to GNU Linux, or unrelated?

A while back I wrote a tiny piece of Phoenix middleware to add the GNU message for an arbitrary name to phoenix applications:

https://github.com/alex0112/ex_clacks_overhead

I haven't touched it in years, so it's possible that it no longer works. But maybe this post is a kick in the pants for me to go test it again.

Thanks for keeping it in the overhead. GNU Terry Pratchett.

> "A man's not dead while his name is still spoken"

Looks like the site uses the deprecated "Report-To:" header in responses too, something I've never seen before and had to lookup.

Whenever you load my blog, it randomly sends back a name from my configuration's clackset: https://github.com/Xe/site/blob/ff8627975e5f6718fff33051d11a.... I hate that the list is so long but over time it will only grow longer.

The most important HTTP header (though clacks is a packet routing system, not an application-level streaming protocol)

Does “saying the name lest he be forgotten” classify as Cargo Cult?