Encrypting the Internet: HTTPS Everywhere

[HardOCP News]

From the front page:

Today, because of the high cost of the hardware used to implement HTTP security, secure transactions are used on a small amount of the Internet traffic (for things like shopping, banking etc.). Researchers at Intel are developing a technology that reduces the amount of CPU performance required to do cryptography for compute intensive symmetric and public key algorithms. The technology can reduce server RSA and AES workloads (the algorithms used for security) by more than 50% for ecommerce and banking applications. This means that a server could support double the number of secure transactions than is possible today, and could enable Internet security to be used more broadly.

 

[Shambler]

But I have a Mac. So this doesn't concern me right?


/suit up!

 

[28 noobs later]

But I have a Mac. So this doesn't concern me right?


/suit up!

LOL

 

[Fuser]

Kinda curious when at the low end there are cheap accelerators http://www.soekris.com/vpn1401.htm
"Public Key, RSA, DSA, SSL, IKE and DH, 24 to 70 connections/sec using 1024 bit keys" for $75.

Or when you head into the midrange/highend realm a BIG-IP load balancer + SSL acceleration http://www.f5.com/products/big-ip/ "up to 48,000 SSL transactions per second available on the BIG-IP 8800".

I don't really grasp the market, hosting providers or such maybe?

 

[veritas7]

A lot of websites have HTTPS versions of themselves if you're really paranoid about security on non-financial websites. Just adding https:// to a common website and you might find it

 

[srangara]

A lot of websites have HTTPS versions of themselves if you're really paranoid about security on non-financial websites. Just adding https:// to a common website and you might find it

Yeah, but then you get pounded with warnings after each mouse click because of all those images and banner ads being downloaded from non-secured servers.

 

[knothead34]

But I have a Mac. So this doesn't concern me right?


/suit up!

dam that was funny lol.

 

[rabident]

I don't really grasp the market, hosting providers or such maybe?

https is just one spin. It's being developed for cryptography in general which has all kinds of uses. Disk encryption, https / ssh, VPN, etc. Most people won't buy accelerator cards for their PC, so it should help client side as well. i.e. less CPU utilization for your VPN client software, faster hard disk throughput on your encrypted drive, lower CPU utilization connecting to financial sites or next gen P2P clouds.

Plus server side, accelerator cards are rarely used. Some network devices have SSL ofload capabilities, but they're increasingly being used to decrypt the packets to process them, then re-encrypting before sending them on to the next device (eventually the web server). Getting accelerator functionality on a thoroughly tested Intel CPU essentially for free is going to be a welcome value add.

 

[NKDietrich]

But I have a Mac. So this doesn't concern me right?


/suit up!

That's correct sir! Macs do not require encryption. Fairy dust and Steve Job's pancreas combine to form an impenetrable barrier to haxx0rs.

 

[bherrin2]

web exploits can be sent just as easily over https as http. Problem is most ids technology has no visibility inside https sessions. So, that leaves many security infrastructures wide open to attacks over https.

Not saying that should prevent the use of https, but I do think security monitoring technology needs to catch up a bit before we start worrying about encrypting everything.

 

[BakedA|aska]

Kinda curious when at the low end there are cheap accelerators http://www.soekris.com/vpn1401.htm
"Public Key, RSA, DSA, SSL, IKE and DH, 24 to 70 connections/sec using 1024 bit keys" for $75.

Or when you head into the midrange/highend realm a BIG-IP load balancer + SSL acceleration http://www.f5.com/products/big-ip/ "up to 48,000 SSL transactions per second available on the BIG-IP 8800".

I don't really grasp the market, hosting providers or such maybe?

Hosting and cloud computing providers are the likely targets for these devices. It's significantly less expensive to buy more app servers than it is to buy just a single one of those Big-IP 8800 load balancers. Those LBs cost a pretty penny.