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Comparing anti-HTTPS people to anti-vaxxers is a terrible comparison and obvious clickbait. If someone believes that HTTP is good enough, fine with me - it does

Comparing anti-HTTPS people to anti-vaxxers is a terrible comparison and obvious clickbait. If someone believes that HTTP is good enough, fine with me - it doesn't hurt anyone. If it's a company, their customers can take their business elsewhere if they care. On the other hand, anti-vaxxers cause harm to others due to herd immunity, plus their children usually have no choice in the matter.

amputect 8y ago
I would agree with you if this was just a list of people who think HTTP is good enough. If you read the article it's not "HTTP is good enough" it's "HTTPS is too slow" or "HTTPS is a plot by Google to take over the web" or fundamentally misunderstanding the value proposition of HTTPS or straight up lying about what it does. Anti-vaxxers is absolutely a valid comparison here, the people in this blog aren't just not using HTTPS, they're actively encouraging people in their capacity as professionals to avoid using it, for really dumb and dangerous reasons that don't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny.
grumdan 8y ago
I think the overall quackery and use of bizarrely flawed and insane reasoning by charlatans is reminiscent of anti-vaxxers. Additionally, I think use of HTTP over HTTPS could conceivably lead to actual harm for users unaware of the implications: If for example commercial websites adopted the recommendations of switching to HTTP, people could actually lose money, so this may cause financial harm. Even worse, imagine, for instance, Facebook running over HTTP in an oppressive regime where, say, homosexuality was illegal; if this regime also didn't have enough clout to get Facebook to give them access to their data, then they could now more easily identify and persecute people for their communication content (same would go for dissidents or journalists if they used this), resulting in much worse harm to people than just losing money. There are many other examples were losing confidentiality or integrity of your communications can actually harm you, I just picked the first two that came to mind.
cmroanirgo 8y ago
With the risk of extreme downvoting...I'll play devil's advocate here. Note that I'm not advocating any particular viewpoint, other than to cast doubt on a frequently held opinion, that may not be all that well founded: > anti-vaxxers cause harm to others due to herd immunity "Ninety-five percent of children entering kindergarten have received two doses of MMR vaccine, as have 92 percent of school children ages 13 to 17 years. In some states, the MMR vaccination rate is near 100 percent. Despite achieving a vaccination rate that theoretically should ensure vaccine-acquired herd immunity, outbreaks of mumps keep occurring, primarily among those who have been vaccinated " [0] --- "Arkansas is battling an outbreak of mumps that began in August. As of December 2, 1,824 people had contracted the disease, despite 90 to 95 percent of school aged children and 30 to 40 percent of adults being “fully immunized,” according to the state health department... Whether they’re vaccinated or not, children miss the same number of days of school due to influenza " [1] --- As disturbing is the lack of choice a child actually has (for anything, really. I distinctly remember not eating enough sweet things that I wanted): > plus their children usually have no choice in the matter. "Comparing vaccination rates in 34 developed nations revealed a significant correlation between infant mortality rates and the number of vaccine doses infants receive. The U.S. requires the most vaccines and has the highest infant mortality. Research shows the more vaccines an infant receives simultaneously, the greater their risk of being hospitalized or dying compared to those receiving fewer vaccines " [2] --- Yes, all the articles are from Mercola, a known 'anti vaxxer', that said all his articles are supported by studies, which is exactly my point: you can't make sweeping statements of opinion and always assume you're right, especially if the 'pro-vaxxers' are also fudging results: "An eight-month investigation revealed shocking flaws in Merck’s clinical trial design, which effectively prevented assessment of safety. Serious adverse events arising outside of a two-week period post-vaccination were simply marked down as “medical history”" [3] [0] https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/04/03/mmr-vaccine-fraud-or-not.aspx https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/04/... [1] https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/12/13/vaccine-failures.aspx https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/12/... [2] https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/07/02/critical-vaccine-studies.aspx https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/07/... [3] https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/06/12/vaccine-safety-testing.aspx https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/06/...

amputect 8y ago

I would agree with you if this was just a list of people who think HTTP is good enough. If you read the article it's not "HTTP is good enough" it's "HTTPS is too slow" or "HTTPS is a plot by Google to take over the web" or fundamentally misunderstanding the value proposition of HTTPS or straight up lying about what it does. Anti-vaxxers is absolutely a valid comparison here, the people in this blog aren't just not using HTTPS, they're actively encouraging people in their capacity as professionals to avoid using it, for really dumb and dangerous reasons that don't stand up to even the slightest scrutiny.

grumdan 8y ago

I think the overall quackery and use of bizarrely flawed and insane reasoning by charlatans is reminiscent of anti-vaxxers. Additionally, I think use of HTTP over HTTPS could conceivably lead to actual harm for users unaware of the implications: If for example commercial websites adopted the recommendations of switching to HTTP, people could actually lose money, so this may cause financial harm. Even worse, imagine, for instance, Facebook running over HTTP in an oppressive regime where, say, homosexuality was illegal; if this regime also didn't have enough clout to get Facebook to give them access to their data, then they could now more easily identify and persecute people for their communication content (same would go for dissidents or journalists if they used this), resulting in much worse harm to people than just losing money. There are many other examples were losing confidentiality or integrity of your communications can actually harm you, I just picked the first two that came to mind.

cmroanirgo 8y ago

With the risk of extreme downvoting...I'll play devil's advocate here. Note that I'm not advocating any particular viewpoint, other than to cast doubt on a frequently held opinion, that may not be all that well founded: > anti-vaxxers cause harm to others due to herd immunity "Ninety-five percent of children entering kindergarten have received two doses of MMR vaccine, as have 92 percent of school children ages 13 to 17 years. In some states, the MMR vaccination rate is near 100 percent. Despite achieving a vaccination rate that theoretically should ensure vaccine-acquired herd immunity, outbreaks of mumps keep occurring, primarily among those who have been vaccinated " [0] --- "Arkansas is battling an outbreak of mumps that began in August. As of December 2, 1,824 people had contracted the disease, despite 90 to 95 percent of school aged children and 30 to 40 percent of adults being “fully immunized,” according to the state health department... Whether they’re vaccinated or not, children miss the same number of days of school due to influenza " [1] --- As disturbing is the lack of choice a child actually has (for anything, really. I distinctly remember not eating enough sweet things that I wanted): > plus their children usually have no choice in the matter. "Comparing vaccination rates in 34 developed nations revealed a significant correlation between infant mortality rates and the number of vaccine doses infants receive. The U.S. requires the most vaccines and has the highest infant mortality. Research shows the more vaccines an infant receives simultaneously, the greater their risk of being hospitalized or dying compared to those receiving fewer vaccines " [2] --- Yes, all the articles are from Mercola, a known 'anti vaxxer', that said all his articles are supported by studies, which is exactly my point: you can't make sweeping statements of opinion and always assume you're right, especially if the 'pro-vaxxers' are also fudging results: "An eight-month investigation revealed shocking flaws in Merck’s clinical trial design, which effectively prevented assessment of safety. Serious adverse events arising outside of a two-week period post-vaccination were simply marked down as “medical history”" [3] [0] https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/04/03/mmr-vaccine-fraud-or-not.aspx https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/04/... [1] https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/12/13/vaccine-failures.aspx https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2016/12/... [2] https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/07/02/critical-vaccine-studies.aspx https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2017/07/... [3] https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/06/12/vaccine-safety-testing.aspx https://articles.mercola.com/sites/articles/archive/2018/06/...