Wikipedia Goes 'Secure' To Block Out NSA's Surveillance


Wikipedia Goes 'Secure' To Block Out NSA's Surveillance

Bangalore: Ever since Edward Snowden blew the whistle on NSA’s surveillance program, there has been a massive security upgrade from many well-known websites around the world. The latest one to join them is Wikipedia, the 7th most popular website in the world.

Just days after the Guardian newspaper revealed report on how National Security Agency (NSA) in the U.S. is using a programming tool called XKeyscore to keep tabs on what people read on Wikipedia, the Wikimedia foundation (a non-profit organization that manages Wikipedia) officially announced on its web portal that it will upgrade its cyber security by implementing HTTPS for logged-in users.

The S in the HTTPS stands for secure. Compared to HTTP, the websites that use HTTPS in their URLs have lesser chance of getting their private information hacked from third-party servers like the government agencies or the Internet Service Providers (ISP). The initial HTTPS users were banks and other organizations that needed an added security from any form of cyber threats. Presently HTTPS is also being implemented by Google, Facebook and Twitter.

Wikimedia stated on its website that making a switch from HTTP to HTTPS for all the inner URLs of Wikipedia is a long-tailed process and often encountered by bug related issues. Yet there has been an incremental progress in the security update. Currently, HTTPS is provided to all the logged-in users and the next step is to provide it to any users accessing Wikipedia.

Since NSA’s XKeyscore has been specifically targeted to track all Wikipedia users, Jimmy Wales, the co-founder of Wikipedia announced the Wikimedia’s decision to speed up the process by tweeting, "I challenge the rest of the industry to join us. Encryption is a human rights issue."