Comments on: Wikipedia will encrypt to fight UK spying

By: Coderjoe

Coderjoe — Sat, 08 Sep 2012 01:22:00 +0000

Wikipedia ALREADY has the ability to browse via HTTPS. However, it is a bit slower, as I don’t think they have the same number of servers handling requests.

The EN main page: https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/w/index.php?title=Main_Page

By: 0xnemo

0xnemo — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 08:34:00 +0000

Why? Because this is a great opportunity to make people care and aware of their abuses by government and private entities.
HTTPS is already “turned on” for Wikipedia, you can already use it if you want. And you could already care for your security if you used EFF’s HTTPS Everywhere. Many do.
The next step here, is enabling HTTP Strict Transport Security, which informs Web browsers to automatically connect to the site using only a secure connection, even if a plain HTTP link has been clicked. That is the “switch” we’re talking about.
It should already be there, but the situation can be used to everyone’s advantage, making people know and discuss and criticize.

By: Jason Amezquita

Jason Amezquita — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 07:31:00 +0000

All they have to do it turn on https, pretty much no one will notice a difference, I don’t see how that would require much debate…

By: Ryan Kiefer

Ryan Kiefer — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 04:32:00 +0000

While this is nice as a threat to what sounds like an absurd monitoring scheme, I don’t know if it would actually happen. Wikipedia and most of its sister sites are largely self-governed, and would be very unhappy if decisions like this were made without their input. While the opinions of Jimmy Wales are generally respected by Wikipedia’s community, they are not final law.

Then again, it was that same self-governing community that decided to black out the site for a day against SOPA, so doing something to protest this law might turn out to be popular.

By: the_engineer

the_engineer — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 03:03:00 +0000

Just because you can do something doesn’t mean you should do it.

By: Jonam

Jonam — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 02:52:00 +0000

Australia’s the next place that will need this. The attorney general is proposing ISPs keep two years worth of data:

http://www.heraldsun.com.au/technology/nicola-roxon-backflip-gives-green-light-for-online-spying/story-fn7celvh-1226464553027

By: thomas vesely

thomas vesely — Fri, 07 Sep 2012 01:54:00 +0000

awesome, a hero……………