Secure surfing should be a consideration for everyone nowadays. We are increasingly using the internet for many parts of our lives and to transport this data - we use a protocol that has no security at all - HTTP.
Unfortunately secure surfing is not as simple as it sounds nowadays. The way the internet has developed so quickly, the privacy of it's users has become rather an afterthought. At the heart of this problem is that of the protocol that is used to transport the majority of our online surfing.
That protocol or language is called HTTP, you may have seen it at the beginning of every web request you enter into your browser. HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transport Protocol and is a very simple communication medium which is also very fast indeed. This speed is perhaps one of it's greatest assets and has helped the internet develop at the outstanding pace we have seen. Unfortunately it is also extremely insecure and it transfers everything in clear, readable ascii text.
If you log all the data of an average internet connection, pretty much all of it will be readable. Every web site, every thing you transmit or receive is instantly readable. This data is transmitted all across the internet with your IP address attached - your internet address which is linked to your physical computer.
This is a great problem for secure surfing, for a start every single thing you do on the web is first of all stored in the logs of your ISP. So how secure are they? Well that would depend on which ISP you use, considering the logs are a complete record of your online surfing you would hope - very secure indeed.
There are lots of other points at which the data can be intercepted, logs stored on routers, the web servers you visit. These are all legitimately recorded and logged, but of course because the information contains real personal data in clear text it also attracts other people - identity thieves and hackers - use the data for identity theft or other criminal acts.
Secure Web surfing is becoming more and more important to lots of people who conduct a huge part of their lives online. All that personal data we have absolutely no control of after it leaves our computer in a clear text packet out onto the world wide web.
Unfortunately secure surfing is not as simple as it sounds nowadays. The way the internet has developed so quickly, the privacy of it's users has become rather an afterthought. At the heart of this problem is that of the protocol that is used to transport the majority of our online surfing.
That protocol or language is called HTTP, you may have seen it at the beginning of every web request you enter into your browser. HTTP stands for Hyper Text Transport Protocol and is a very simple communication medium which is also very fast indeed. This speed is perhaps one of it's greatest assets and has helped the internet develop at the outstanding pace we have seen. Unfortunately it is also extremely insecure and it transfers everything in clear, readable ascii text.
If you log all the data of an average internet connection, pretty much all of it will be readable. Every web site, every thing you transmit or receive is instantly readable. This data is transmitted all across the internet with your IP address attached - your internet address which is linked to your physical computer.
This is a great problem for secure surfing, for a start every single thing you do on the web is first of all stored in the logs of your ISP. So how secure are they? Well that would depend on which ISP you use, considering the logs are a complete record of your online surfing you would hope - very secure indeed.
There are lots of other points at which the data can be intercepted, logs stored on routers, the web servers you visit. These are all legitimately recorded and logged, but of course because the information contains real personal data in clear text it also attracts other people - identity thieves and hackers - use the data for identity theft or other criminal acts.
Secure Web surfing is becoming more and more important to lots of people who conduct a huge part of their lives online. All that personal data we have absolutely no control of after it leaves our computer in a clear text packet out onto the world wide web.
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