South Africa Connect

With South Africa facing elections soon, it has been a matter of much controversy that the Independent Electoral Commission’s website will not run on browsers other than Microsoft Internet Explorer (MSIE) or Netscape Navigator running on the Windows platform.

I have after much searching found a “hack” to gain access to the IEC site with an incompatible browser. This was tried this with Firefox 3 on Mac, but the principles should work on any browser. This an advanced procedure, the less technically bold might like to try the User Agent Switcher plug-in for Firefox

The hack involves changing your user agent string - a simple bit of text stored in your browser configuration files that simply identifies the version of the browser that you are using.

To hack into the IEC website with Firefox:

(1)  Type into the address bar: “about:config” - this command will allow you to edit your browser configuration on most browsers. Be careful not to change any settings here as you could break your browser configuration.

(2)   Find the string called “general.useragent.extra.firefox”.

Write down the contents of the string as you will need it later when you change your settings back.

Type in: “Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 4.0)” and save settings.

Now you can point your browser at the IEC.

After experiencing digital democracy, remember you probably want to change your user agent string back to its original state (mine was “Firefox/3.0.1″) as your browser will not be 100% stable with its new “identity”. Furthermore setting your browser as Internet Explorer will open you up to a whole host of security exploits which see Internet Explorer user agent strings as a gold mine.

Maybe some of you are maybe asking “Why was the user agent string  ‘Mozilla/4.0 (compatible; MSIE 6.0; Windows NT 4.0)’  ?” or “Huh? But I have Mozilla Firefox?” Well the answer lies in, “Agent Strings in Popular Browsers: A Short Summary of the Long Sad History of Agent Strings” by Gerry Patterson ( PGTS Journal, 01 July, 2002):

The history of user agent strings is a long and somewhat convoluted saga that may serve as a cautionary tale of laissez-faire development standards. In case you missed it here is a brief summary of the state of user agent strings. In the early days of browsers, one of the most popular was Mosaic. Netscape adopted the Mosaic standards which came to be known as Mozilla (Mosaic + Godzilla). The user agent string was originally meant to convey information concerning the browser. And Netscape agent strings have mostly contained the word “Mozilla” meaning Mozilla compliant. This was also because some sites were looking for the word “Mozilla” in the agent string. Strictly speaking the information contained in the Netscape agent string was incorrect, since the browser was not Mozilla, it was Netscape

…

Microsoft, one of the new contenders in the browser market, was by this stage an experienced practitioner of vertical integration. As the newcomer, they realised what was required in order for the MSIE browser to get a foothold on the back of the Windows operating system and hence gain access to sites that unwisely employed browser sniffing.

And so the Microsoft browser used an agent string that was similar to the Netscape browser, the clear market leader at the time. In effect MSIE pretended to be Netscape.

Of course the rest is history. Microsoft is now the market leader, and most new browsers that enter the market, and these days there are quite a few of them, use an agent string which is similar to MSIE. Following on with established tradition these new contenders often pretend that they are Microsoft, who are still pretending to be Netscape, who started the whole thing off by pretending to be Mozilla. Are you confused? Don’t worry, you are not alone. Just about everyone is confused about this topic… [read full article]

And so the browser politics of yesteryear affect us today.

______

Don’t forget to register to vote! Voter Registration Weekend is from the 8th to the 9th of November 2008!

VOTER REGISTRATION WEEKEND
8-9 November 2008
Voting stations open 08:00 to 17:00

For more information call 0800 11 8000 toll free from a landline

OR

SMS your ID to 32810 if you are already registered to check your details

or point your browsers to https://www.elections.org.za/amregister/amregister.aspx

______

Alex Comninos is a Researcher and Network Coordinator for Research ICT Africa based, at the EDGE Institute.