HTTPS doesn't hide the URL of the pages you visit. Instead it hides the
content of the page you requested (public) and the content you sent (public
if it was an edit).
-Aaron
On Oct 3, 2011 11:48 AM, "Steven Walling" <swalling(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
Wikipedia Enables HTTPS for Privacy in Browsing
http://www.readwriteweb.com/archives/wikipedia_enables_https_for_privacy_in…
By Marshall Kirkpatrick
Wikipedia visitors can now leverage a new level of security and privacy
regarding their reading habits, thanks to the site's newly announced
support
for HTTPS browsing. Ryan Lane, a Wikipedia Operations
Engineer, writes
that
HTTPS "allows you to visit our sites without
having your browsing habits
tracked, and you can log in without having your password or user session
data stolen." Visitors seeking to navigate the site securely can simply
visit
https://en.wikipedia.org to begin.
Wikipedia has made several steps away from the growing trend of
encouraging
users to share their data with one another, in some
cases explicitly
contrasting the giant encyclopedia's policies and ethos with Facebook's.
"Things like sharing what you're reading, that's where Facebook bumps up
against the line of what people find slightly weird and creepy," Wikipedia
Co-founder Jimmy Wales said in an interview with the Huffington Post's
Bianca Bosker last week. "If I go to read something on Wikipedia, that's
my
own personal business...You should feel safe and
private knowing that
whatever you want to learn, you go to Wikipedia to learn it and you don't
have to worry that you've accidentally told Facebook you want to learn
it."
Facebook itself began offering HTTPS as an optional setting in January.
Twitter did the same in March.
There are down sides to using HTTPS connections, however. Some third party
apps that you do want to allow access to your browsing data, the fabulous
Apture for example, are unable to access and thus provide services on top
of
data on HTTPS pages.
Many people will welcome the change none the less.
###
--
Steven Walling
Community Organizer at Wikimedia Foundation
wikimediafoundation.org