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| Ed.Kloonk:
--- Quote from: james_s on November 29, 2020, 05:34:29 am --- I absolutely understand the reasons behind having encryption on the internet, what I don't understand is why anyone would care about wikipedia traffic. If somebody wants to intercept what I'm reading about on wikipedia they can go right ahead, if we're talking about my email or banking that's another matter. --- End quote --- I can give you one very good reason. Malicious code injection in scripts and images. |
| AntiProtonBoy:
Injection and attacks aside, there is the fundamental concept of "what I read is none of your fucking business". I fail to see the distinction between my traffic being intercepted for scrutiny vs. walking up to a stranger on the bus, bending the book they are reading towards you and say "I want to see what you are reading". It's super intrusive, and in fact the former situation is a lot worse, because electronic information can be easily scrutinised by arbitrary number of faceless people and retained forever. |
| tom66:
--- Quote from: james_s on November 30, 2020, 06:40:07 am ---Or scenario 2, only encrypted path is available. Big evil totalitarian government doesn't want people using the encrypted path (which is the only connection available) so they block it and those citizens are locked out, as is anyone else who can't use the encryption for one reason or another. So much better I guess? --- End quote --- Well exactly. The totalitarian government can no longer pretend they are not blocking the free exchange of information. There is no pretending to be the good guy any more. --- Quote from: james_s on November 30, 2020, 06:40:07 am ---Either way I don't care one bit what the Chinese government does internally. It's their country and their business, none of mine. If the Chinese citizens don't like it then it's up to them to rise up and do something about it. My country has a long history of meddling in the affairs of others and crusading around pushing our culture and values and it has brought us trouble to no end. --- End quote --- How exactly is mandatory encryption "messing in the affairs" of others? It has benefits for US ISP customers too because it means that net neutrality is effectively preserved, when it is no longer possible to determine who is prepared to pay for a given packet. And, it'll stop that bullshit where Comcast, et al., inject ads into error pages (and in some cases, actual *frickin* pages, to entice you to buy a new modem...) You can have a view of the world that includes people beyond those living in the luxury of free countries like us. --- Quote from: james_s on November 30, 2020, 06:44:39 am --- --- Quote from: SilverSolder on November 30, 2020, 01:03:21 am ---This is all assuming that HTTPS is 100% safe... - I believe it is safe against "ordinary" hackers, but is it also safe against well resourced snoopers e.g. governments and the like? --- End quote --- I would bet money that it's not. There are all kinds of back doors for the US government at least and I can only assume that the governments of other developed nations have talent and infrastructure available to make short work of cracking just about any encryption available to the masses. Prism or whatever that was called was exposed but I think it's safe to assume that was only the tip of the iceberg. --- End quote --- If you have an exploit that can break RSA, then you will be an incredibly rich man. There are vulnerabilities in very specific implementations (for instance OpenSSL) but RSA itself appears to be unbreakable - without solving the prime factorisation problem. |
| duckduck:
--- Quote from: james_s on November 29, 2020, 05:34:29 am ---I absolutely understand the reasons behind having encryption on the internet, what I don't understand is why anyone would care about wikipedia traffic. If somebody wants to intercept what I'm reading about on wikipedia they can go right ahead, if we're talking about my email or banking that's another matter. --- End quote --- The issue is not "I don't care if people can see what I'm reading on Wikipedia", the issue is that when you connect to a web site without using encryption (http vs https), there is no guarantee of integrity. This means that you can't tell if someone (your ISP or the CIA/NSA/FBI/DOD/LOL) between you and that site has changed the site, possibly removing parts of it (censorship) or adding some malicious javascript to run in your browser. If the bad guys exploit a flaw in your browser, they actually could get banking information from another tab in your browser by messing with the code in Wikipedia. Encryption protects against this. I wanted a rude username and Ed.Kloonk already addressed this. |
| MrMobodies:
I was looking at the article again and noticed this: https://www.mediawiki.org/wiki/Reading/Web/Desktop_Improvements#What_features_will_be_added --- Quote ---Currently, the interface… …doesn't match the expectations. …is cluttered and not intuitive. :bullshit: …doesn't highlight the community side. …isn't consistent with the mobile version. The desktop interface does not match the expectations created by the modern web platforms. It feels disorienting and disconnected. Navigation and interface links are organized haphazardly. There is clutter that distracts users from focusing on what they came for. It is challenging for readers to focus on the content :bullshit: . It is not possible for them to intuitively switch languages, search for content, or adjust reading settings. New editors are unable to use their intuition to set up their account, open the editor, or learn how to use non-article pages for moderation purposes. A very small percentage of readers understand how Wikimedia wikis function. Many readers are not aware that the content they are reading is written by volunteers and updated frequently, or that they can potentially contribute as well. The large difference in experiences among our desktop interface, apps, and the mobile web, makes it difficult for readers to connect our products. There is a lack of unity in the concept of Wikimedia sites. --- End quote --- It feels disorienting and disconnected: It feels To whom and what? The users, volunateers or the person/editors writing that? Navigation and interface links are organized haphazardly? It looks fine to me. Search for content: Well I have never had any problems reading stuff on there. Many readers are not aware that the content they are reading is written by volunteers and updated frequently: I simply click on talk history to see the changes. New editors are unable to use their intuition to set up their account? I never really edit things from Wikipedia but I was able to set one up quickly to add to the feedback. A very small percentage of readers understand how Wikimedia wikis function. Is this true? I go there to read stuff, sometimes I see things are added or removed and see who changes the articles and so on. Not consistent with mobe apps? No I don't want it to look like a mobile version on my desktop with a big blooming toolbar stuck over the contents and the white spaces. I use desktop version to avoid what I think I am seeing as bloat. --- Quote ---How the changes will be made Principles We will not touch the content. We will not remove any functionality. We are inspired by the existing gadgets. We will not make major changes in single steps. We will not touch other skins than Vector. We are working on the interface only. No work will be done in terms of styling templates, the structure of page contents, map support, or cross-wiki templates. Elements of the interface might move around, but all navigational items and other functionality currently available by default will remain. We have analysed many wikis and have noticed many useful gadgets. Some of them definitely deserve to be surfaced and be a part of default experience. Though our changes are easily noticeable, we are taking an evolutionary approach and want the site to continue feeling familiar to readers and editors. Each feature is discussed, developed, and deployed separately. Skins other than Vector are out of the scope of our adjustments. We have frozen Vector to Legacy Vector, and begun deploying our features as parts of the new default Vector. --- End quote --- So they have looked at other wiki's, found what they think is useful and want to make it the default experience whilst altering the interface. A certain skin or might not have stuff on it like other wiki's but the interface may include those unwanted things. Is that that they want to change the interface and force me to to see something for a mobile version? Is this contradicting the first sentences about skins an vectors when changing the interface? It is challenging for readers to focus on the content Never had ANY PROBLEMS with it ever. is cluttered and not intuitive. Cluttered? Are they joking? Joke: Cluttered with what? Useful text relevant to the content (as it is now) and no with bloated UI graphics, fixed headers and widgets, white spaces and other crap I don't want stuck over it as an increasing rise I am seeing with modern websites. If this was the case why didn't I hear complaints about this over the past two decades. Maybe I am not looking in the right places. What do you think of that? I don't know, some of it sounds like bulshit to me like that the readers finding it difficult to read articles despite their being skins and templates they can choose from but correct me if you think I am wrong. |
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