Internet architects propose encrypting all the world’s Web traffic

A vastly larger percentage of the world's Web traffic will be encrypted under a near-final recommendation to revise the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) that serves as the foundation for all communications between websites and end users. Despite concerns about government surveillance of Internet communications, websites to publish the majority of their pages in a "plaintext" format that can be read by government spies or anyone else who has access to the network the traffic passes over. Cryptographer and security expert Bruce Schneier urged people to "make surveillance expensive again" by encrypting as much Internet data as possible. The HTTPbis Working Group, the Internet Engineering Task Force (IETF) body charged with designing the next-generation HTTP 2.0 specification, is proposing that encryption be the default way data is transferred over the "open Internet."