5 ms·
If they weren't using TLS, I'd guess that this wasn't cutting corners but rather intentional to help caching. Ten people watching the same video can get the sam
by PeterisP 4y ago
If they weren't using TLS, I'd guess that this wasn't cutting corners but rather intentional to help caching. Ten people watching the same video can get the same data packets, ten people watching the same video over TLS have ten data streams with nothing in common.
- hot_gril 4y agoTLS is usually terminated at the CDN, isn't it? I actually don't remember. If so, it's not a problem for caching.
- nhecker 4y agoYes.
- acdha 4y agoCDNs usually cache the plaintext object rather than the encrypted stream. What I’d believe is that they started with a CDN which charged more for HTTPS support - I believe they used Akamai at one point, which would make sense since they had some of the best presence in China in the 2000s and into the 2010s and DEFINITELY charged noticeably more for HTTPS unless you could negotiate well.
- toast0 4y agoIt used to be not uncommon for some ISPs and corporations/schools to run transparent caching HTTP proxies. I don't know how much of that still exists, but anything helps.
- acdha 4y agoOne of the benefits of HTTPS everywhere was breaking the bad versions of those systems: I remember Vodafone ES having one which cached resources far longer (months) than the Cache-Control headers allowed, and mobile ISPs used ByteMobile to over-compress images. You still see opt-in proxies, which are at least better in the sense of the user being able to see the config & trust relationship when something breaks.
- hot_gril 4y agoYeah, feels good not having the ISP mess with that anymore.