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Google needs to fight back. The first thing Google should do is encourage HTTPS everywhere. Google should change the algorithm to prefer sites that support HT

Google needs to fight back. The first thing Google should do is encourage HTTPS everywhere. Google should change the algorithm to prefer sites that support HTTPS everywhere. Matt Cutts should make some video like: "Google uses over 200 different signals to determine page relevancy. Our users value privacy, so one of the signals we use is whether the site uses HTTPS. We tend to prefer to send search users to secure sites... blah blah blah ... Enabling HTTPS with PFS will increase your search rank. HTTPS will slow page load times, but the privacy boost exceeds the speed penalty for 99% of sites." The only reason I don't use HTTPS always is because it slows down page loads, and page speed is huge for PPC performance, and big for SEO. Google needs to hardcode a "privacy" boost into the rankings and make that public. Within a year, 80% of the web would be HTTPS.

ihsw 13y ago
HTTPS everywhere carries a cost to Google -- crawling the web. There certainly are increased costs associated with crawling an HTTPS-only internet, and the search appliance no doubt prioritizes HTTP over HTTPS.
- karterk 13y ago
  Even at Google's scale, at this point, I think it's a negligible cost.
gph 13y ago
But can we still trust Certificate Authorities at this point? If HTTPS was widely adopted, that would just give the NSA a new point of attack. CAs have already been compromised, and there are probably plenty that have handed over keys to the NSA that we don't know about.
hyperbovine 13y ago
That would be great, but it would not have done a thing against the most recently revealed NSA attack vector. NSA compromised the private fiber intranet connecting Google's datacenters. Perhaps those should have been encrypted but at any rate, client-server encryption isn't going to guard against that sort of attack. It's really appalling.
ateeqs 13y ago
Wait guys, let me get this straight: You guys are not okay with the US government accessing your data that Google has, but you are somehow okay with sharing your data with Google? I just see big "evil" vs small "evil." I'm not seeing much of a difference. Also, would you be okay if another government had access to your data in Google's cloud? You guys are probably not seeing the futility of it all.
- ryguytilidie 13y ago
  This false equivalency thing is getting really fucking old. If you can't see the difference between voluntarily giving info to Google and the government literally stealing this info, than just please don't get involved in any discussions about this.
  - ateeqs 13y ago
    Oooh, cursing. That's one way to show your larger than average wiener size in HN, isn't it? ;) I am not sure I said they were equivalent-- they are two sizes of evil. Besides, "stealing" is a relative term, and the government does not consider what it is doing as stealing.
    - ryguytilidie 13y ago
      I wasn't trying to show my weiner size. I was frustrated at your point being a pile of disingenuous garbage. People are upset the government is stealing their data. Your brain somehow mashed this together into "lol you idiots have no problem with voluntarily giving your info to a company but DO have a problem with it being stolen?" Is this just a desperate hope to improve your self esteem? Because it certainly has no connection to reality. The idea that you've followed it up with snark as if you think you're remotely close to being right is just really disappointing for our species honestly.
      - ateeqs 13y ago
        Funny, you seem to be "frustrated" a lot. ;) A lot of peeps in HN seem to have this expectation that their data is somehow secure when they give it to a third-party. This is a completely false and an impossible expectation. To me, this _is_ and has been reality for a while. If an entity with resources really wants to get to your data, they will get to it. It doesn't matter if they steal or get a court order-- that, to them, is just semantics. I'm not the one having trouble accepting this. It's just everyone suddenly realized this last week.

ihsw 13y ago

HTTPS everywhere carries a cost to Google -- crawling the web. There certainly are increased costs associated with crawling an HTTPS-only internet, and the search appliance no doubt prioritizes HTTP over HTTPS.

karterk 13y ago
Even at Google's scale, at this point, I think it's a negligible cost.

gph 13y ago

But can we still trust Certificate Authorities at this point? If HTTPS was widely adopted, that would just give the NSA a new point of attack. CAs have already been compromised, and there are probably plenty that have handed over keys to the NSA that we don't know about.

hyperbovine 13y ago

That would be great, but it would not have done a thing against the most recently revealed NSA attack vector. NSA compromised the private fiber intranet connecting Google's datacenters. Perhaps those should have been encrypted but at any rate, client-server encryption isn't going to guard against that sort of attack. It's really appalling.

ateeqs 13y ago

Wait guys, let me get this straight: You guys are not okay with the US government accessing your data that Google has, but you are somehow okay with sharing your data with Google? I just see big "evil" vs small "evil." I'm not seeing much of a difference. Also, would you be okay if another government had access to your data in Google's cloud? You guys are probably not seeing the futility of it all.

ryguytilidie 13y ago
This false equivalency thing is getting really fucking old. If you can't see the difference between voluntarily giving info to Google and the government literally stealing this info, than just please don't get involved in any discussions about this.
- ateeqs 13y ago
  Oooh, cursing. That's one way to show your larger than average wiener size in HN, isn't it? ;) I am not sure I said they were equivalent-- they are two sizes of evil. Besides, "stealing" is a relative term, and the government does not consider what it is doing as stealing.
  - ryguytilidie 13y ago
    I wasn't trying to show my weiner size. I was frustrated at your point being a pile of disingenuous garbage. People are upset the government is stealing their data. Your brain somehow mashed this together into "lol you idiots have no problem with voluntarily giving your info to a company but DO have a problem with it being stolen?" Is this just a desperate hope to improve your self esteem? Because it certainly has no connection to reality. The idea that you've followed it up with snark as if you think you're remotely close to being right is just really disappointing for our species honestly.
    - ateeqs 13y ago
      Funny, you seem to be "frustrated" a lot. ;) A lot of peeps in HN seem to have this expectation that their data is somehow secure when they give it to a third-party. This is a completely false and an impossible expectation. To me, this _is_ and has been reality for a while. If an entity with resources really wants to get to your data, they will get to it. It doesn't matter if they steal or get a court order-- that, to them, is just semantics. I'm not the one having trouble accepting this. It's just everyone suddenly realized this last week.