Wikimedia Sites Moving to HTTPS by Default
The Wikimedia Foundation is in the process of implementing HTTPS by default to encrypt all Wikimedia traffic, wrote Wikimedia Foundation Senior Legal Counsel Yana Welinder, Legal Counsel Victoria Baranetsky and Operations Engineer Brandon Black in a blog post Friday. “We…
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will also use HTTP Strict Transport Security (HSTS) to protect against efforts to ‘break’ HTTPS and intercept traffic,” the post said. “With this change, the nearly half a billion people who rely on Wikipedia and its sister projects every month will be able to share in the world’s knowledge more securely.” In the past four years, Wikimedia users could access Wikimedia sites with HTTPS manually through HTTPS Everywhere, and since 2013, logged in users accessed Wikimedia sites via HTTPS by default, the post said. Increasing concerns about government surveillance prompted Wikimedia community members to push for more broad HTTPS protection, so Wikimedia made the transition a priority, the post said. “In a world where mass surveillance has become a serious threat to intellectual freedom, secure connections are essential for protecting users around the world,” the post said. “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,” it said. “Accounts may also be hijacked, pages may be censored, other security flaws could expose sensitive user information and communications.” The final migration to HTTPS and HSTS for all Wikimedia sites is expected to be completed within a couple of weeks, the post said.