I absolutely endorse this request. Forcing SSL was one of silliest things that could happen. Most of wikimedia developers and technicians are working with most modern technologies in the world, but I can imagine in other parts of world people are working on something what people in modern parts of world can see only in museum.
What is actually a point in having SSL enforced? Do you realize that most of traffic to / from wikipedia doesn't matter to anyone (hackers / governments / spies). It's not a facebook where people collect tons of private content. Wikipedia is meant to share free knowledge, why do we need to encrypt that? On Tue, Sep 10, 2013 at 9:49 AM, Amir Ladsgroup <[email protected]> wrote: > Hello! > I recently closed a huge [[w:fa:ویکیپدیا:نظرخواهی برای استفاده از اساسال > برای ویکیپدیای فارسی|RfC]] about using SSL in Persian Wikipedia which > mainly runs by Iranian users. > > Iran is the number one target in PRISM surveillance program (Further > information: https://bit.ly/17N57rx) and long history of arresting, > torturing and murdering internet activists (case in point [[w:en:Sattar > Beheshti|Sattar Beheshti]]) or even family members of internet activists > (case in point Yashar Khameneh) leaves no doubt on intention of Iranian > government on surveillance and control of Iranian people. You can find a > very long list in human rights defendants organizations (Breaching privacy > of Iranian people is one of the very few things that both Iran and US > governments agree about it) so we are sure we need to switch to SSL but > using SSL in Iran has its own problems. Iranian authorities block SSL IP of > some sites that they have blocked in non-SSL mode either it's blocked > completely or partially, these sites includes facebook, twitter, and until > recently Wikipedia. Wikipedia is not blocked in Iran but about 400 articles > of Persian Wikipedia (and some other sites like the whole Hebrew Wikipedia) > are blocked for viewing the complete list of the articles which are mainly > about politics, religion, or sexology go to [[w:fa:رده:صفحههای فیلترشده در > ایران]]. Access to Wikipedia in SSL is open since August 25. Speed of > internet in Iran is one of the slowest in the world and it's not a big deal > about loading pages of Wikipedia but variance of internet speed is too high > and we will fail in our main goal on providing free knowledge for people > who don't have easy access to knowledge, people like middle or elementary > school students who are living in countryside and problem of internet > access becomes even worse when the government makes speed of internet on > SSL so low that time of opening a simple page becomes like 4 times higher > when people try to use SSL, It's mainly because of encouraging people not > to use SSL or even we can consider intention of decryption of SSL data. > Scammed SSL certificates attack (Further information: > https://bit.ly/1dXl5Ub) which happened two years ago shows us how much > the government desires to > control people. Another problem is sometimes specially when there is a > crisis in politics or in the country in general (which happens three or > four times every year) access to any site outside of HTTP layer is > impossible and all of other protocols even IRC happens to be blocked out of > nowhere. > > Community of Persian Wikipedia (readers and writers) are strongly against > enforced SSL because of the issues I talked about it above and in other > hand they worry about privacy and not letting the governments breach their > privacy > > Here is my suggestions and requests based on what Persian Wikipedia and > Iranian Wikimedians in general agree: > *It's very important to let people choose their protocol, There is > consensuses that the community agrees on SSL as default for logged in users > but they are really insisting on making the protocol an arbitrary option > and It seems It's not enabled in WMF projects except mediawiki.org (in > [[m:HTTPS]] you can find the documentation about disabling SSL but as far > as I checked It's not possible and I couldn't find the option in my > preferences maybe It's a bug) > *In order to encourage people to use SSL and increase their safety of > editing in Wikipedia we need to speed up loading of Wiki pages I suggest > web designers and other experts come and help on optimizing Wikipedia > specially Persian language projects. We warmly welcome any ideas about > increasing safety. > *Because of the experience of the past community thinks It's very probable > that SSL access to Wikipedia in Iran will be blocked several times and even > maybe every block won't take more than one week but It will happen. So we > need to be very flexible and fast in cases like this in future So hereby I > ask people who are in charge of SSL in WMF to be prepared and be able to > switch to from SSL to non-SSL and switch back easily and rapidly in cases > of SSL blocking in Iran. > *Lack of documentation in safety issues put Iranian lives in danger, I can > give you an example. Insisting on SSL is good but because of speed or other > issues of SSL some people use proxy even they are using SSL, what they do > when they want to bypass blocking in HTTP layer and speed of loading > increases. It's very dangerous because data will not be encrypted until > reception in proxy computer and that means easy information for the > government with delusion of safety, SSL in this case becomes harmful not > useful. We need to complete documentation and let people know about the > safety. > > > I'm sending this mail to wikitech-l because I think Iranian people need > help of technical people who can do something about the SSL issue > Best > -- > Amir > _______________________________________________ > Wikitech-l mailing list > [email protected] > https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l _______________________________________________ Wikitech-l mailing list [email protected] https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikitech-l
