Like the TSA at the airport.
Security that we never needed before, but now suddenly we do.
Now we’re dependent on a third party gatekeeper for permission to have a web site.
Free, for now.
It’s a move by the weasels-that-be to turn the Internet into yet another tool for profit and control.
No it’s not.
And it’s not really like the TSA on the airport. It’s more like a “having a door on your plane” type of security.
This is the best analogy I’ve ever read in the subject, bravo.
What if the issuer of the security certificate started charging you $1000 a year?
Why wouldn’t they?
Letsencrypt certs are free dude. Https literally costs you nothing.
They’re free today. Maybe not tomorrow. But by then HTTP will have been “phased out” and asking the “security authority” for permission will have become common practice.
They’re a non profit backed by a ton of major internet players, it’s not going to happen. https://letsencrypt.org/about/
What you’re talking about was already the situation before LE existed, we’re not going back to that. There’s other free providers now too.
Ok. That’s a good argument. I didn’t realize that the forces for good here were so strong in this.
But frankly I’d rather not depend on them either.
Well, self-sign your own certs and deal with the implications of not being a trusted root certificate authority
Some do. It depends on the type of certificate. Thankfully now we have LetsEncrypt so that there is a free alternative to the big CAs.
To answer your initial question - yes it is necessary. Without HTTPS or encryption in general, anybody who can intercept your connection can see everything you’re doing.
A real world example of this is let’s say you’re connected to a WiFi network that has no password and are browsing a plain HTTP site. Open wifi networks are unencrypted, as is HTTP.
I can sit across the road in a vehicle, unseen, on a laptop and sniff the traffic to view what you’re doing. If you log into your bank, I now have your credentials and can do what I like, and you don’t even know.
This is why we need encryption. It is an (almost) guarantee that your traffic is only viewable to yourself and the other end of whatever you’re connecting to and not anyone in the middle.
Edit: for Anyone downvoting OP remember this is nostupidquestions. Take the time to educate if you know better but don’t downvote “stupid” questions lol.
Yes, letsencrypt etc. mitm etc. Thanks, I have heard that particular argument.
Here’s another
Because prospective customers get shy when the browser says that your site is “insecure”
Because it makes for better google ranking.
Because everybody’s doing it.
So there you go. Mob hype and googlian dictatorship.
That’s why we https
Because prospective customers get shy when the browser says that your site is “insecure”
Because it factually is insecure. It is not encrypted and trivial to inspect.
Because it makes for better google ranking.
No, in this day and age it is permission to play. Firefox has a built in feature to only load HTTPS sites, which I have enabled. This has nothing to do with Google. Your issue is with expensive CAs, to which there is a free solution (Let’s Encrypt). Not HTTPS itself.
So there you go. Mob hype and googlian dictatorship.
Incorrect. It is a matter of safety and security and a trivial thing to implement. You are free to not use HTTPS if you want, just as people are free to not consume your service if you don’t.
Calling it a “dictatorship” is hyperbole and demonstrates that you clearly have no idea what you’re talking about and won’t listen to people that do.
You seem to be stuffed and pacified with popular explanations that amount to marketing. And so confidently parroted. But that’s the internet for you.
It’s the fact of relying on the whim of a third party gatekeeper for permission to run my site that bothers me. It appalls me that you people take this laying down.
I’d switch to another certificate provider …
Don’t play the fool.
If “charging $1000 for security certificates” became common practice (much like HTTPS) then you would be stuck paying it.
(And maybe there would be a “standards of behavior” clause in the security certificate contract too. lol)
You are now dependent on a third party gatekeeper. He can bend you over literally any way at all. He just hasn’t yet.
And that goes for the legal authority behind that authority too, of course.
That’s a good theory sir/lady, and actually was the case until around 10 years ago.
Then Snowden happened, and we found out that the nsa is sucking all unencrypted traffic out of the net and into their databases.
Then letsencrypt happened and now you can get your certificates for free. Don’t pay 1000$. Letsencrypt is free and you can automatically update certificates. If your hoster doesn’t offer https for free, choose a different hoster.
Yes it’s free today. Maybe not tomorrow. And the fact remains that you need permission from a third party (basically a gov official) to have a website now. Doesn’t that trouble you?
No, and its clear you don’t understand the fundamentals here and you are throwing around baseless stats.
It’s not even about the certificate itself but the trust of who generates the cert. Just about anyone can generate a https cert, therefore it will always be free.
Who’s going to trust a company selling certs for $1000? Now that money is involved, trust is lost and the cert becomes worthless.
Consider. We’re all using HTTPS and depending on certs.
Suddenly a wild threat appears.
For our own safety, from now on, certs will only be issued by those who get special permission from the gov.
Google will be cooperating in this.
It’s technically trivial after all, because we’re all already using HTTPS anyway. It’s just a matter of changing the lock on the gate.
Thank you for your cooperation in these troublesome times.
(And a year later. We’re installing new security software. We need to charge you $1000/year now. This will have no effect upon our main clients…)
there’s still the very real possibility they’re hoovering all the encrypted data, too. and storing the stuff to/from ‘interesting’ end points for later ‘analysis’–that is, if they don’t already have the current tech broken.
Sure, but one thing we learned is that encryption sure makes things more annoying for them
Not sure I get this one. You can still run a website with http. Now it might alarm the browser and users. But you can do it.
As for certificates being free but maybe not now. It’s actually the other way round. As I recall when https was pretty new the main way was via verisign, and it was not cheap to get one.
The fact you could later get one for free for example via letsencrypt is what made it so everyone could run https (along with the changes that allow multiple certs on a single server with multiple domains).
If it became expensive to get certs again I’d bet a lot of hobbyist stuff would go back to http or self signed and browsers would need to tone down the warning. But, I cannot imagine that happening now. Having most sites encrypted is a good thing.
The problem with TSA is that it reduces our privacy and dignity in exchange for security (that security may be theatre). HTTPS is different because it increases privacy which allows us to keep more dignity (security that is not theatre.)
TSA is like needing to strip so that your clothes don’t get wet while going out in the rain, while HTTPS is like wearing a raincoat so your clothes don’t get wet while going out in the rain.
HTTP is like using a postcard, HTTPS is using a sealed envelope. Which would you use for your bank information?
The “third party gatekeeper” does more than just secure data, it also acts as a validation that your site is what it says it is. So if someone jacks your domain out from under you and hosts something totally different, people can tell that something’s up.
99% of us with websites never touch bank information.
But would you be OK taking all the stuff you write on those websites, and scrawling it on a giant chalkboard in your town square instead? One where anyone can see (or even change) what you’ve written?
And http still works in any browser I know of.
I kind of get your frustration though. I set up my personal website precisely to get away from big platforms; yet my HTTPS is validated by Google. It feels like a defeat still having them involved in the process.
Thank you.
Use http and Chrome calls you insecure and there’s a red flag and you have to hit a special button… daunting for the average user for sure.
Firefox is good tho.
One person pointed out that letsencrypt is backed by a bunch of good powerful people. Which might be bullshit but it makes me think again.
Go ahead, submit your credit card details in plain text. I’m sure nothing bad will happen.
All I see is **** **** **** ****
But 99% of us with websites don’t take credit card numbers.
Do you take login credentials that could be skimmed and used for identity theft?
Maybe this one will strike home for people who think it’s a scam by The Man:
With no HTTPS, every single thing you do on the web can be monitored by your ISP’s automated tracking system and sold to data warehouses that then sell the data on to AI aggregators who can profile your activity to figure out how to shape your future behaviour based on how you responded in the past.
And HTTPS isn’t just about protecting secrets, it’s about validating the communication channel hasn’t been tampered with. Without it, anyone between you and your destination could be modifying what actually gets sent back to you, injecting anything from malware to slight changes in text content based on the above profiling info.
HTTPS is part of what keeps the web free and federated.
Yes, security. We love security now. The argument is well known.
But now you need permission from an official to have a web site. That’s bad, right?
You should probably be more concerned about DNS than HTTPS. DNS is a point where government censors actually do go after web sites they don’t like.
What? I’ve got all sorts of self hosted websites. Encrypted by HTTPS. No permission needed. If Let’s Encrypt vanished, I’d just switch to self-signing my certificates and using a pinning service.
Doesn’t chrome flag self-signed certificates?
Ok, I didn’t know that was a thing. Thanks
.
No.
