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Facebook is switching its 1 billion users to a more secure connection. The downside: Web speeds may be slower.
STORY HIGHLIGHTS
- Facebook is moving to HTTPS connections by default
- That may result in slowed speeds for some users
- The switch is designed to offer additional security
- People who are unhappy with the change can opt out
According to a recent blog post,
Facebook is in the process of moving all of its users in North America
-- and soon the rest of the world -- to a type of Internet connection
that is more secure but also tends to slow down Web browsing a bit.
Called HTTPS, as opposed
to less-secure HTTP, it's the connection you see on online retail sites
when you're about to enter credit card information or a password.
Sometimes a little lock icon appears in the browser window when you're
connected to a site with HTTPS. (The "s," by the way, stands for
"secure.")
"As the Web evolves, expectations around security change," Facebook's Alex Rice wrote last year
when he announced that HTTPS would become an option on Facebook. "For
example, HTTPS -- once a technology used primarily on banking and
e-commerce sites -- is now becoming the norm for any Web app that stores
user information."
The new change is that
Facebook is starting make HTTPS the default setting for all its 1
billion-plus users, so people who haven't selected that option soon will
get added security -- and, potentially, slower browsing.
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"People will be able to opt-out of HTTPS for maximum speed if that's how they roll," according to the blog TechCrunch.
"It is far from a simple
task to build out this capability for the more than a billion people
that use the site and retain the stability and speed we expect,"
Facebook's Frederic Wolens told that tech news site, "but we are making
progress daily towards this end.
"This may slow down
connections only slightly, but we have deployed significant performance
enhancements to our load balancing infrastructure to mitigate most of
the impact of moving to HTTPS, and will be continuing this work as we
deploy this feature."
How will you know whether
you're using HTTPS or HTTP? Look at the top of your browser window,
where you enter Internet addresses. If you go to Facebook and see
https://facebook.com in that box, then you're browsing on the
more-secure connection, which scrambles data as it sends it back and
forth to Facebook's servers, making it more difficult for someone in the
middle to nab your passwords or other sensitive data.
"Think of it like this:
you're having a private conversation with your new boyfriend or
girlfriend, and your ex -- unbeknownst to you -- is a few tables over
listening to every word," the blog Lifehacker writes in a post titled "WTF is HTTPS."
"That's the sort of risk HTTP poses, whereas HTTPS would be more like
if you and your new romantic interest were speaking a new language that
only the two of you understood. To your stalker of an ex, this
information would sound like gibberish and s/he wouldn't get any value
from listening if s/he tried.
"HTTPS is a way for you
to exchange information with a web site securely so you don't have to
worry about anyone trying to listen in."
Other online services, including Gmail, already use HTTPS by default.
★ Summary
1. Facebook is more secure but also tends to slow down Web browsing a bit.
2. HTTPS -- once a technology used primarily on banking and e-commerce sites -- is now becoming the norm for any Web app that stores user information."
3. "HTTPS is a way for you to exchange information with a web site securely so you don't have to worry about anyone trying to listen in."
★ Thinking.
I need to more study for different between HTTP and HTTPS.
★ Source
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/19/tech/social-media/facebook-https/index.html
★ Summary
1. Facebook is more secure but also tends to slow down Web browsing a bit.
2. HTTPS -- once a technology used primarily on banking and e-commerce sites -- is now becoming the norm for any Web app that stores user information."
3. "HTTPS is a way for you to exchange information with a web site securely so you don't have to worry about anyone trying to listen in."
★ Thinking.
I need to more study for different between HTTP and HTTPS.
★ Source
http://www.cnn.com/2012/11/19/tech/social-media/facebook-https/index.html
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