This article was published on June 12, 2015

Wikipedia now uses HTTPS to stop people snooping on your binge learning


Wikipedia now uses HTTPS to stop people snooping on your binge learning
Owen Williams
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Owen Williams

Former TNW employee

Owen was a reporter for TNW based in Amsterdam, now a full-time freelance writer and consultant helping technology companies make their word Owen was a reporter for TNW based in Amsterdam, now a full-time freelance writer and consultant helping technology companies make their words friendlier. In his spare time he codes, writes newsletters and cycles around the city.

The world’s biggest online encyclopedia finally uses HTTPS to encrypt your connection, so you can learn anything you want without people being able to snoop on your browsing.

As of today, all Wikimedia sites are encrypted using HTTPS in addition to implementing HTTP Strict Transport Security protection for users. HTTPS isn’t exactly new to the services, but it wasn’t enabled by default until now.

This means when you visit the site, you’ll see the green lock in your address bar, confirming you’re in the right place and on a secure connection.

Screen Shot 2015-06-12 at 3.47.38 PM

On its blog today, the organization said that the process to migrating to HTTPS by default began years ago and involved changes to its infrastructure and underlying code to support secure communication.

It warns that the change may affect how some people access the site in “certain parts of the world” but says that it’s tested it extensively over the last year in consideration of a “diversity of devices” and will share full technical details of the change once it’s implemented.

➤ Securing access to Wikimedia sites with HTTPS by default [Wikimedia]

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