Wikipedia Enables HTTPS for Privacy in Browsing http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikipedia_enables_https_for_privacy_in_... By Marshall Kirkpatrick
Wikipedia visitors can now leverage a new level of security and privacy regarding their reading habits, thanks to the site's newly announced support for HTTPS browsing. Ryan Lane, a Wikipedia Operations Engineer, writes that HTTPS "allows you to visit our sites without having your browsing habits tracked, and you can log in without having your password or user session data stolen." Visitors seeking to navigate the site securely can simply visit https://en.wikipedia.org to begin.
Wikipedia has made several steps away from the growing trend of encouraging users to share their data with one another, in some cases explicitly contrasting the giant encyclopedia's policies and ethos with Facebook's.
"Things like sharing what you're reading, that's where Facebook bumps up against the line of what people find slightly weird and creepy," Wikipedia Co-founder Jimmy Wales said in an interview with the Huffington Post's Bianca Bosker last week. "If I go to read something on Wikipedia, that's my own personal business...You should feel safe and private knowing that whatever you want to learn, you go to Wikipedia to learn it and you don't have to worry that you've accidentally told Facebook you want to learn it."
Facebook itself began offering HTTPS as an optional setting in January. Twitter did the same in March.
There are down sides to using HTTPS connections, however. Some third party apps that you do want to allow access to your browsing data, the fabulous Apture for example, are unable to access and thus provide services on top of data on HTTPS pages.
Many people will welcome the change none the less.
###
HTTPS doesn't hide the URL of the pages you visit. Instead it hides the content of the page you requested (public) and the content you sent (public if it was an edit).
-Aaron On Oct 3, 2011 11:48 AM, "Steven Walling" swalling@wikimedia.org wrote:
Wikipedia Enables HTTPS for Privacy in Browsing
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikipedia_enables_https_for_privacy_in_...
By Marshall Kirkpatrick
Wikipedia visitors can now leverage a new level of security and privacy regarding their reading habits, thanks to the site's newly announced
support
for HTTPS browsing. Ryan Lane, a Wikipedia Operations Engineer, writes
that
HTTPS "allows you to visit our sites without having your browsing habits tracked, and you can log in without having your password or user session data stolen." Visitors seeking to navigate the site securely can simply visit https://en.wikipedia.org to begin.
Wikipedia has made several steps away from the growing trend of
encouraging
users to share their data with one another, in some cases explicitly contrasting the giant encyclopedia's policies and ethos with Facebook's.
"Things like sharing what you're reading, that's where Facebook bumps up against the line of what people find slightly weird and creepy," Wikipedia Co-founder Jimmy Wales said in an interview with the Huffington Post's Bianca Bosker last week. "If I go to read something on Wikipedia, that's
my
own personal business...You should feel safe and private knowing that whatever you want to learn, you go to Wikipedia to learn it and you don't have to worry that you've accidentally told Facebook you want to learn
it."
Facebook itself began offering HTTPS as an optional setting in January. Twitter did the same in March.
There are down sides to using HTTPS connections, however. Some third party apps that you do want to allow access to your browsing data, the fabulous Apture for example, are unable to access and thus provide services on top
of
data on HTTPS pages.
Many people will welcome the change none the less.
###
-- Steven Walling Community Organizer at Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation.org
On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 3:13 PM, Aaron Halfaker aaron.halfaker@gmail.comwrote:
HTTPS doesn't hide the URL of the pages you visit. Instead it hides the content of the page you requested (public) and the content you sent (public if it was an edit).
-Aaron
This is a good point, especially because I meant to send it to Communications Committee list, not RCOM. Too many committees in my contact list. ;)
I need to take that back. It looks like modern implementations of HTTPS send normal HTTP (headers, body and all) over an encrypted connection and this *would* protect the requested URLs. The only thing a man-in-the-middle would know is that a connection has been made and possibly how many bytes of encrypted data had been sent/received.
It looks like I need to send an email to my Internet Programming professor. ;)
-Aaron
On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 3:44 PM, Steven Walling swalling@wikimedia.orgwrote:
On Mon, Oct 3, 2011 at 3:13 PM, Aaron Halfaker aaron.halfaker@gmail.comwrote:
HTTPS doesn't hide the URL of the pages you visit. Instead it hides the content of the page you requested (public) and the content you sent (public if it was an edit).
-Aaron
This is a good point, especially because I meant to send it to Communications Committee list, not RCOM. Too many committees in my contact list. ;)
-- Steven Walling Community Organizer at Wikimedia Foundation wikimediafoundation.org
RCom-l mailing list RCom-l@lists.wikimedia.org https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/rcom-l