- Dec 30, 2012
- 4,809
Wikipedia’s half billion users can now browse the online crowd-sourced dictionary with fewer concerns about government censorship and surveillance, following an announcement Friday by the Wikimedia Foundation, which publishes Wikipedia sites, that communication with those sites are now encrypted by default.
Wikimedia said that this move to HTTPS, a more secure communications protocol, will help prevent governments and other snoops from monitoring what users are reading on Wikipedia, in addition to making it more difficult for Wikipedia articles to be censored by ISPs.
“We believe encryption makes the web stronger for everyone. In a world where mass surveillance has become a serious threat to intellectual freedom, secure connections are essential for protecting users around the world,” Wikimedia said in a blog post. “Without encryption, governments can more easily surveil sensitive information, creating a chilling effect, and deterring participation, or in extreme cases they can isolate or discipline citizens.”
Wikimedia has been working on the move to HTTPS for the past four years, while battling censorship, particularly in China. Three weeks ago, Wikipedia was censored by China’s Great Firewall in advance of the 26th anniversary of Tiananmen Square massacre. In 2013, Wikimedia began providing HTTPS by default only to users who were logged in to the site. In response, China blocked the HTTPS version of Wikipedia, and an organization called Great Fire, which monitors China’s internet censorship, then criticized the Wikimedia Foundation for not making encryption the default.
As of today, all Wikimedia users will be connected through HTTPS, as Great Fire requested two years ago. Additionally, Wikimedia will be using HTTP Strict TransportSecurity (HSTS) to protect against attempts to intercept encrypted traffic.
Wikimedia’s announcement comes less than a week after the federal Office ofManagement and Budget send out a memorandum to the heads of all federal agencies, saying that “all publicly accessible Federal websites and web services” will soon be required to used HTTPS. The letter, which was dated June 8, stated that this move would prevent “inconsistent, subjective determinations across agencies regarding which content or browsing activity is sensitive in nature.” All government websites are supposed to comply by December 31, 2016.
Source
Wikimedia said that this move to HTTPS, a more secure communications protocol, will help prevent governments and other snoops from monitoring what users are reading on Wikipedia, in addition to making it more difficult for Wikipedia articles to be censored by ISPs.
“We believe encryption makes the web stronger for everyone. In a world where mass surveillance has become a serious threat to intellectual freedom, secure connections are essential for protecting users around the world,” Wikimedia said in a blog post. “Without encryption, governments can more easily surveil sensitive information, creating a chilling effect, and deterring participation, or in extreme cases they can isolate or discipline citizens.”
Wikimedia has been working on the move to HTTPS for the past four years, while battling censorship, particularly in China. Three weeks ago, Wikipedia was censored by China’s Great Firewall in advance of the 26th anniversary of Tiananmen Square massacre. In 2013, Wikimedia began providing HTTPS by default only to users who were logged in to the site. In response, China blocked the HTTPS version of Wikipedia, and an organization called Great Fire, which monitors China’s internet censorship, then criticized the Wikimedia Foundation for not making encryption the default.
As of today, all Wikimedia users will be connected through HTTPS, as Great Fire requested two years ago. Additionally, Wikimedia will be using HTTP Strict TransportSecurity (HSTS) to protect against attempts to intercept encrypted traffic.
Wikimedia’s announcement comes less than a week after the federal Office ofManagement and Budget send out a memorandum to the heads of all federal agencies, saying that “all publicly accessible Federal websites and web services” will soon be required to used HTTPS. The letter, which was dated June 8, stated that this move would prevent “inconsistent, subjective determinations across agencies regarding which content or browsing activity is sensitive in nature.” All government websites are supposed to comply by December 31, 2016.
Source
