Cybersecurity & Standards, Government Surveillance, Privacy & Data
Working Together To Make the Entire Internet More Secure
I must admit, when I mentioned to friends recently that I was going to the XBiz conference for work, they were surprised and asked me what exactly it is I do at work anyway. The answer is simple; I work for a digital rights advocacy organization that is committed to helping secure the entire internet. The adult entertainment industry represents a big swath of traffic on the internet and web, so if we at CDT don’t work with them, we aren’t really living our mission and a vast quantity of traffic remains insecure.
CDT was invited by the Free Speech Coalition to be part of a panel that addressed the importance of moving all websites to HTTPS. The adult industry, along with the news industry, are the two main sectors in the top website rankings that lag behind in using HTTPS. The goal of the XBiz panel was to share the why and how of HTTPS with the business decision makers in the industry.
All security is a joke unless you have HTTPS.
Eric Paul Leue of the Free Speech Coalition moderated the panel, which also featured Selena Deckelmann of Mozilla, Zack Tollman of Wired, and Shirley Lara of Chaturbate. We made our case for why HTTPS was essential for protecting the privacy of their customers and shared the tangible business benefits beyond that, such as faster delivery speed and access to new web tools. Zack also discussed Wired’s ups and downs in making the move to HTTPS. Shirley summed it all up when she said her team told her “all security is a joke unless you have HTTPS.”
Brian, Selena, and Eric at the XBiz conference.
The funny thing about the panel and the conversation that followed was that it really could have happened at any business or industry conference. The people in the room cared about their customers, wanted to maximize their digital experience, and wanted to be on the leading edge of technology. Based on the response, it looks like a number of the major adult sites are going to take CDT, Mozilla, and Wired up on our offer to help make the move to HTTPS. Awesome.
If you’re a site operator that wants to make the move to HTTPS, get in touch. And if you want more information about why all websites need to be using HTTPS, check out our one-pager.
Hopefully we have more great collaborations on moving the entire internet to HTTPS to come – thanks to the Free Speech Coalition for having us and making this an industry priority.
