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back to article 'All browsing activity should be considered private and sensitive' says US CIO

The CIO of the United States has floated a plan to make HTTPS the standard for all .gov websites. “The majority of Federal websites use HTTP as the primary protocol to communicate over the public internet,” says the plan, which also states that HTTP “create a privacy vulnerability and expose potentially sensitive information …

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  1. Christoph

    Stop sniggering at the back there.

    And start guffawing.

    7 0 Reply
    1. Mark 85
      Reply Icon
      Unhappy

      Rats... you caught me while I was thinking that he said this because NSA has figured out how to backdoor HTTPS.

      6 0 Reply
      1. Coen Dijkgraaf
        Reply Icon

        Except the Government is not worried about what snooping they do via NSA, just what other people do.

        The NSA probably has direct access to those servers anyway and doesn't need to break SSL.

        9 0 Reply
        1. Anonymous Coward
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          Anonymous Coward

          If you can secret letter all the certificate signers HTTPS is entirely immaterial.

          2 0 Reply
  2. Gray
    Alert

    We really have one?

    "The CIO of the United States has floated a plan ... "

    I mean, we really have a CIO ... ? Huh! How about that ... !

    2 0 Reply
  3. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    A government official backing encryption by default??

    Somewhere David Cameron is having a coronary.

    4 0 Reply
    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: A government official backing encryption by default??

      encryption where by default the government holds they key

      7 0 Reply
    2. nijam Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: A government official backing encryption by default??

      > Somewhere David Cameron is having a coronary.

      Why? He would have no idea that making a goverment website secure would require encryption! After all, that would imply that the government are terrorists or paedophiles... Oh.

      4 0 Reply
  4. Magani
    Black Helicopters

    Attn: Senator George Brandis

    “All browsing activity should be considered private and sensitive,”...

    Anyone care to run this rather heretical statement passed the Government of the Greater Antipodes and our Beloved Attorney-General in particular?

    What on earth will the Five Eyes do if this comes to pass?

    6 0 Reply
    1. Yet Another Anonymous coward Silver badge
      Reply Icon

      Re: Attn: Senator George Brandis

      “All browsing activity should be considered private and sensitive,”...

      AND of course all private and sensitive information should be tracked by the government

      - so all browsing activity should be tracked by the government - QED

      3 0 Reply

  5. This post has been deleted by its author

    1. Sirius Lee
      Reply Icon

      It might make them take notice or it might give them a false sense of security. Sure, other governments will not be able to see what it is that US Joe is looking at on his government's web site but the NSA sure will because it's not encrypted on the servers.

      1 0 Reply
  6. Tom 13

    Bwah-ha-ha-ha!

    This is most clearly a sound byte and nothing more. The government can't even keep current on its certificates for websites it already has decided ought to be encrypted. Like our yearly IT Security Awareness training which always starts with a warning that this sites certificate is invalid.

    Sorry, in principle I like the idea. But I live in the weeds where they work.

    3 0 Reply

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