
Bing Moving to Encrypt Search Traffic by Default - Errorcod3
https://blogs.bing.com/webmaster/2015/06/15/bing-moving-to-encrypt-search-traffic-by-default/
======
skrowl
What's the point of encrypting the traffic in transit if you just PRISM
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_%28surveillance_program%...](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PRISM_%28surveillance_program%29))
logs of it on the back end straight to the NSA? I guess this at least keeps
random MITM attacks at bay?

~~~
nivla
Isn't Google part of it too? If you scrape out Google and Bing, what other
good alternatives are you left with that wouldn't comply if requested?

Isn't it better to have some prevention against random MITM, especially on
mobile devices where your choices are fixed? Like preventing tracking
injections from your ISP (namely Verizon or Comcast)?

~~~
asuffield
(Tedious disclaimer: my opinion, not my employer's. Not representing anybody
else. I work at Google.)

We have made multiple extremely clear statements on this topic. I link a
couple of them here:

[http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html](http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/what.html)
[http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/19/google-issues-clearest-
sta...](http://venturebeat.com/2013/06/19/google-issues-clearest-statement-
yet-on-nsa-and-prism-no-server-access-no-back-door-no-drop-box-no-free-for-
all/)

~~~
toomuchtodo
My favorite Google response:
[https://plus.google.com/+MikeHearn/posts/LW1DXJ2BK8k](https://plus.google.com/+MikeHearn/posts/LW1DXJ2BK8k)

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taf2
Amazing that so much attention is given to the NSA here... To me a more
interesting question is how will this impact keyword data that's pasted
through the referring URL? Will we be losing bing.com as a referrer on iOS
similar to google.com?

~~~
themeek
> Amazing that so much attention is given to the NSA here..

Well, the topic of default encryption is related to a mass global surveillance
network supported by data collection capabilities built into the internet
backbone - and HN is concerned about what these technical capabilities could
mean for a runaway government or in the hands of adversarial
entities/governments/groups. It's an incredibly important topic, so I'm glad
there's some chat about it.

> To me a more interesting question is how will this impact keyword data
> that's pasted through the referring URL?

Doesn't Google have a redirect mechanism that allows referrer information to
pass through when a 'blue link' is clicked?

~~~
zyx321
Last I checked, the only way to get the search keywords from those redirects
was registering for Google webmaster tools.

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ausjke
Does this simply mean you now do [https://bing.com](https://bing.com) for
searching? which google has been doing for a while?

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finnn
And yet on their blogpost announcing it, they use insecure resources and
blogs.bing.com is only https if you manually specify the https, so it's
basicaly not SSL'd.

