https://m.xkcd.com/341/ https://m.xkcd.com/341/ Yes, the IETF and Mozilla really put NSA in their place with SSL, but the publicized, primary reason for adopti

https://m.xkcd.com/341/ https://m.xkcd.com/341/ Yes, the IETF and Mozilla really put NSA in their place with SSL, but the publicized, primary reason for adoption was eCommerce. As the NSF handed control of the backbone to Sprint and commerce was finally permitted, the vendors campaigned to secure http lest the consumer’s personal data and credit card details were snooped and scooped while in-flight. The Internet was incubated in a high-trust environment and every collegiate sysadmin was secretly employed by the NSA (except for Chris Siebenmann who is a North Korean sleeper agent). Once they were able to receive paychecks from Jeff Bezos instead, they began installing malware on routers to replace porn with videos of dancing babies and kittens being totes adorbs. SSL kept our credit cards safe from the NSA and our porn is no longer sponsored by the ASPCA. Whew.