• Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar
  • My Social Media
  • About
    • About Mark Draughn
    • Other Authors
      • About Gary Olson
      • About Ken Gibson
      • About Joel Rosenberg
    • Disclosures
    • Terms and Conditions

Windypundit

Classical liberalism, criminal laws, the war on drugs, economics, free speech, technology, photography, sex work, cats, and whatever else comes to mind.

HTTPS

March 28, 2015 By Mark Draughn 3 Comments

Ever since Edward Snowden told us all about the NSA’s rampant spying on Americans, I’ve been meaning to convert Windypundit to an encrypted site, and I think I finally did it. If all is working, you should be seeing “https:” in front of “windypundit.com” up there in the address bar.

(You might not see the little lock symbol, however, depending on your browser. That’s because the images in my Amazon ads widget are being served unencrypted by Amazon. In theory, those images could be intercepted and altered in transit, so your browser is letting you know that you’re looking at mixed content, some of which is not strictly secure. Apparently Amazon ads are infamous for ruining secure pages this way.)

It’s not that I need the security. The whole point of a blog like this is to share everything on the site with literally anyone who wants to see it. In fact, I’ve gone through rather a lot of trouble to make sure that happens. Ask the server for a page, and ye shall receive it.

My reason for adding encryption is really just to make a small contribution toward gumming up the workings of the surveillance state. This page traveled to your browser as one more secure data stream on the net — random bits for all practical purposes, except to you and me. There’s nothing worth spying on here, but only you and I can be sure of that. It’s one more thing that intelligence and law enforcement agencies can’t read, one more thing to waste their time, one more thing to discourage them from trying.

Encryption disguises the internet’s valuable data in the hiss of (pseudo-) random noise. Spying on the internet takes work, and that work pays off because the data is there to find. But it doesn’t have to be that way. We can make it harder for them to spy on us, and that will make it less worthwhile for them to try.

Be the noise.

Related

Share This Post

Filed Under: Privacy

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Matt Haiduk says

    March 28, 2015 at 10:02 pm

    So, what you’re saying is that you clearly have something to hide because you’re hiding something? Sounds like a basis for a warrant to me.

    Reply
    • Mark Draughn says

      March 29, 2015 at 9:38 am

      Heh. I would argue that encrypting internet traffic is no more suspicious than sending a letter through the U.S. postal service. Or does using an envelope instead of a postcard mean you’re trying to hide something?

      Actually, making them get a warrant would be a step in the right direction. Getting a warrant takes work. They have to fill out the application, a judge gets involved…it takes a bit of time. But without encryption, all they have to do is watch for the data to flow past a monitoring point. I’m pretty sure they’re not supposed to do that without a warrant or other legal cover, but I’m not sure there’s any mechanism in place to stop them. (There certainly isn’t for the NSA.)

      With encryption, the pipe is secure. Even with a warrant, Comcast can’t give them my unencrypted traffic, so they have to go after the endpoints — my server or your computer. Whether they do that legally with a warrant or illegally by hacking, it’s still more work than activating a sniffer at an internet hub.

      Reply

Trackbacks

  1. Windypundit Technical Review - Windypundit says:
    April 1, 2015 at 7:27 pm

    […] an earlier post, I […]

    Reply

Leave a ReplyCancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search

Chicago Metro Area Covid Status

Recent Posts

  • Ta’Kiya Young Shooting Analysis
  • Watching People Die – Part 3: Policy
  • Watching People Die – Part 2: Lessons
  • Watching People Die – Part 1: Incidents
  • America’s Rifle
  • Meet the New Cuteness
  • Jane Notz is Fibbing
  • Smarter Gun Control?

Where else to find me

  • Twitter
  • Post
  • Mastodon

Follow

  • Twitter
  • Mastodon

Bloggy Goodness

  • Agitator
  • DrugWar Rant
  • Duly Noted
  • Dynamist
  • Hit & Run
  • Honest Courtesan
  • Nobody's Business
  • Popehat
  • Ravings of a Feral Genius

Blawgs

  • a Public Defender
  • appellatesquawk
  • Blonde Justice
  • Chasing Truth. Catching Hell.
  • Crime & Federalism
  • Crime and Consequences Blog
  • Criminal Defense
  • CrimLaw
  • D.A. Confidential
  • Defending Dandelions
  • Defending People
  • DUI Blog
  • ECIL Crime
  • Gamso For the Defense
  • Graham Lawyer Blog
  • Hercules and the Umpire
  • Indefensible
  • Koehler Law Blog
  • Legal Satyricon
  • New York Personal Injury Law Blog
  • Norm Pattis
  • not for the monosyllabic
  • Not Guilty
  • Probable Cause
  • Seeking Justice
  • Simple Justice
  • Tempe Criminal Defense
  • The Clements Firm
  • The Trial Warrior Blog
  • The Volokh Conspiracy
  • Underdog Blog
  • Unwashed Advocate
  • West Virginia Criminal Law Blog

Bloggers

  • Booker Rising
  • Eric Zorn
  • ExCop-LawStudent
  • InstaPundit
  • Last One Speaks
  • Leslie's Omnibus
  • Marathon Pundit
  • Miss Manners
  • Preaching to the Choir
  • Roger Ebert's Journal
  • Speakeasy Blog
  • SWOP Chicago

Geek Stuff

  • Charlie's Diary
  • Google Blogoscoped
  • Schneier on Security
  • The Altruist
  • The Ancient Gaming Noob
  • The Daily WTF
  • xkcd

Resources

  • CIA World Factbook
  • Current Impact Risks
  • EFF: Bloggers
  • Institute for Justice
  • Jennifer Abel
  • StrategyPage
  • W3 EDGE, Optimization Products for WordPress
  • W3 EDGE, Optimization Products for WordPress
  • W3 EDGE, Optimization Products for WordPress
  • Wikipedia
  • WolframAlpha

Gone But Not Forgotten

  • Peter McWilliams

Copyright © 2023 Mark Draughn · Magazine Pro On Genesis Framework · WordPress

Go to mobile version