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How important is encryption to you?

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Shashank
from Gurgaon |

Wordpress.com flipped the switch recently and gave "https" to millions of blogs. For self-hosted sites, Cloudflare has been offering free SSL service for years.

Now, PGP encrption is gaining popularity and services such as Protonmail are becoming mainstream.

Though journalists have been using such encryptions to securely share information for a awhile now, but media websites have thus far resisted moving to SSL.

How about you? Do you use SSL and PGP? How important is that green lock to you on your blog?

Edited
Reason: Typos

Replies 1 to 5 of 5

The Sorcerer
from Mumbai |

it costs money. Fully managed VPS is expensive as it is. I am not sure if I should switch because some also complained that after improper SSL switching they considerably lost their traffic and adsense revenue. But the website's backend is SSL viz. done by the host.

Amitesh Gupta
from Patna |

The sites which are commercial or store sensitive information needs SSL encryption to prevent any leakage. For example, this site uses modern cipher suite for data protection.

Renie Ravin
from Chennai |

Soon, websites which don't use SSL will be flagged on Chrome and Google announced a long time ago that secure websites will have an advantage in rankings. Amazon is giving out SSL certificates for free if you're hosted with them. I guess going SSL is inevitable!

How popular is protonmail? Do you use it?

Shashank
from Gurgaon |

I've heard Google prioritises SSL sites, but the effect is not very significant, I guess.

Yes, I've been using Protonmail since it was opened to the public (no more invite system). I've been sort of happy with it. I don't suppose a lot of people use it as of now mainly because it's too much of a hassle trying to switch accounts. But the numbers are growing. Also, not many people are aware of/know how to install and use PGP -- which basically means though I have an encrypted inbox, most mails I receive are unencrypted.

On the other hand, I like the idea of being able to share my PGP Public Key on something such as Twitter without the fear of being spammed.

The Sorcerer
from Mumbai |

I am curious to know Indiblogger's traffic improvement before and after ssl. just a month long comparison would be nice. 

Amitesh Gupta
from Patna |

Also, Protomail or other email encryption service can be a boon for terrorists! 💣🔫💥

Shashank
from Gurgaon |

Sure. One of the early encrypted email service was Lavabit - hosted in the US, which was a big mistake. The FBI basically asked its owner to hand over the Private Keys, used to decrypt emails. He refused, got sued, and then decided to shut down the service instead of betraying the trust of his service users. Though I understand the risks, I'd not like fear of terrorism to dictate how technology progresses.

Amitesh Gupta
from Patna |

Security has always been, and will remain, a concern for any country. And, Terrorism is something that superpowers are not yet prepared to deal with. As, the contemporary war, is not against any other country, it is against terrorism. So, we cannot afford to have totally encrypted mailing or messaging service. The Intelligence and Interpol must have a key to decrypt them.

Shashank
from Gurgaon |

Google Chrome is set to call out sites that do not use "https", to pressure more of them to get secure. What's the general opinion on this 'kinda' heavy-handed approach?

Read https://techcrunch.com/2016/09/08/chrome-is-helping-kill-http/ for details.

Shashank
from Gurgaon |

Really? I think it's a step in the right direction.