5 ms·

Can they afford to? What was stopping them before?

eksith 13y ago
It's not exactly a basement operation. I mean WikiMedia is basically one of the busiest destinations on the web running on donations alone, so even if the majority of sites aren't affected that much by switching to HTTPS, at the volumes they're serving, it must have a pretty significant impact.
- diminoten 13y ago
  Yeah that's what I'm thinking as well, this isn't a switch-flip, I hope this doesn't impact their operating cost too much. :(
  - eksith 13y ago
    They may very well see a significant spike though. This is why people should donate as much as possible before the "drive banners" come up. It doesn't have to be a whole lot; if most of the people who use it give even a small sum, considering the volume of visitors, they could still keep up with operations costs pretty well.
- cpeterso 13y ago
  I posted a patch to change Firefox's Wikipedia search bar from HTTP to HTTPS, but Wikipedia developers said their infrastructure was not ready for load. Maybe they will be more receptive now. I'll ping them again. :) "We're still waiting on some core changes in MediaWiki to switch logged-in users to HTTPS. I'd prefer to have that happen first." https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=758857 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=758857 https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45765 https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45765
mpyne 13y ago
> What was stopping them before? That's the question we should all be asking. Mallory has always been out there. NSA is certainly a member of Mallory, but is not the only member. So while it's nice that NSA is bringing attention to the idea of securing your communications, it shouldn't have had to come to this. It's been recommend practice for years now to use TLS for everything unless there were good reasons not to, to the point that it's baked-in to SPDY.
- diminoten 13y ago
  The good news in all of this is that people are realizing that it's not that hard to be more secure with their data. The information is getting out there about how to be secure, at least. Maybe not against the NSA, but against your everyday problems people are going to be better prepared.
- vidarh 13y ago
  It takes some getting used to even the idea that something like reading or editing an encyclopaedia might be activity that we should care all that much about securing. (This whether or not your goal with TLS for it is securing that site or increasing the overall volume of encrypted data)
  - mpyne 13y ago
    Why would it take some time? It's the exact same logic as 'privacy is important even if I have done nothing wrong' that we keep pointing out in response to those who say that "you have nothing to fear unless you have something to hide".
    - diminoten 13y ago
      Because it's not true that everything we do has to be private. It just doesn't mesh with how people think of privacy.
      - foobarbazqux 13y ago
        We tend to expect online privacy to match our physical understanding of it. If I went to the library and used the card catalog to locate articles about pressure cookers and backpacks in an encyclopedia, I wouldn't expect the librarians to tell the police, and I wouldn't expect the police to come and knock on my door to ask me about it.
        diminoten 13y ago
        Interestingly enough, that's an incorrect expectation[0], which makes it a great example of how poorly understood privacy rights actually are, both in physical space and the virtual space. [0] http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=ifissues&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=21662 http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=ifissues&Template=/C...

It's not exactly a basement operation. I mean WikiMedia is basically one of the busiest destinations on the web running on donations alone, so even if the majority of sites aren't affected that much by switching to HTTPS, at the volumes they're serving, it must have a pretty significant impact.

diminoten 13y ago
Yeah that's what I'm thinking as well, this isn't a switch-flip, I hope this doesn't impact their operating cost too much. :(
- eksith 13y ago
  They may very well see a significant spike though. This is why people should donate as much as possible before the "drive banners" come up. It doesn't have to be a whole lot; if most of the people who use it give even a small sum, considering the volume of visitors, they could still keep up with operations costs pretty well.
cpeterso 13y ago
I posted a patch to change Firefox's Wikipedia search bar from HTTP to HTTPS, but Wikipedia developers said their infrastructure was not ready for load. Maybe they will be more receptive now. I'll ping them again. :) "We're still waiting on some core changes in MediaWiki to switch logged-in users to HTTPS. I'd prefer to have that happen first." https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=758857 https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=758857 https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45765 https://bugzilla.wikimedia.org/show_bug.cgi?id=45765

mpyne 13y ago

> What was stopping them before? That's the question we should all be asking. Mallory has always been out there. NSA is certainly a member of Mallory, but is not the only member. So while it's nice that NSA is bringing attention to the idea of securing your communications, it shouldn't have had to come to this. It's been recommend practice for years now to use TLS for everything unless there were good reasons not to, to the point that it's baked-in to SPDY.

diminoten 13y ago
The good news in all of this is that people are realizing that it's not that hard to be more secure with their data. The information is getting out there about how to be secure, at least. Maybe not against the NSA, but against your everyday problems people are going to be better prepared.
vidarh 13y ago
It takes some getting used to even the idea that something like reading or editing an encyclopaedia might be activity that we should care all that much about securing. (This whether or not your goal with TLS for it is securing that site or increasing the overall volume of encrypted data)
- mpyne 13y ago
  Why would it take some time? It's the exact same logic as 'privacy is important even if I have done nothing wrong' that we keep pointing out in response to those who say that "you have nothing to fear unless you have something to hide".
  - diminoten 13y ago
    Because it's not true that everything we do has to be private. It just doesn't mesh with how people think of privacy.
    - foobarbazqux 13y ago
      We tend to expect online privacy to match our physical understanding of it. If I went to the library and used the card catalog to locate articles about pressure cookers and backpacks in an encyclopedia, I wouldn't expect the librarians to tell the police, and I wouldn't expect the police to come and knock on my door to ask me about it.
      - diminoten 13y ago
        Interestingly enough, that's an incorrect expectation[0], which makes it a great example of how poorly understood privacy rights actually are, both in physical space and the virtual space. [0] http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=ifissues&Template=/ContentManagement/ContentDisplay.cfm&ContentID=21662 http://www.ala.org/Template.cfm?Section=ifissues&Template=/C...