Someone in DC cares about online security
I’ve been hammering popular online services like Facebook and Twitter for months for utterly weak efforts to protect consumers so I was pleased to hear that Senator Chuck Schumer has joined the fight. Some of the worst online services in my online security report card were served letters by Senator Schumer asking them to turn SSL security on by default. While these letters don’t carry any weight of law, companies tend to modify their behavior “voluntarily” when they get notice from a U.S. Senator, especially when the cost of the remedy is barely measurable.
Sites like Facebook finally added a secure SSL mode earlier this month, but the feature is off by default until a user manually turns it on which is unlikely for most people. It really wouldn’t cost Facebook anything to just turn SSL on by default for everyone because the performance penalty of SSL is barely measurable on modern hardware.
[...] Someone in DC cares about online security (Digital Society) [...]
[...] on the security front, Digital Society continues to analyze the security measures taken by popular websites, though I have to disagree on one point in this report: When Democrats like Senator Schumer express [...]
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[...] is responding to mounting pressure after some high profile account compromises by allowing customers to opt-in to always-on secure [...]
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Digital Society is a digital think tank that believes culture and commerce are inseparable, that the digital economy flourishes when people are free and rights are secure, and that free markets free people.
Digital Society is an independent 501(c)3 non-profit organization, funded by donations from Jon Henke and from Arts+Labs. We advocate for a pro-culture, pro-commerce digital society through research, analysis and debate on emerging technology issues.
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