Last week, Google announced it would assign positive favor to websites that use secure connections, or HTTPS encryption by default. The positive favor, or what they call ranking signal, is a strong indication from Google that they value secure websites. In other words, Google wants to make sure that websites people access from it are secure. And we at Paubox couldn’t agree more.
Encryption Everywhere
Every aspect of Paubox, whether it’s a public blog post like this or our HIPAA compliant file sharing and messaging service, is encrypted with strong 256-bit encryption. Regardless of the content we post or the data we store, we use robust encryption everywhere. It’s our way of saying we value your data, we value our content, and we value how we deliver and store your data.
In this post, we’ll cover why we decided from Day One to use to HTTPS everywhere.
We Live in the Snowden Age
As I read the Edward Snowden article on Wired.com today, I realized that we do indeed live in the Snowden Age. Take for example, the article’s first-ever disclosure of an NSA project codenamed MonsterMind. Its purpose: Automated counterattacks against suspected foreign cyberattacks. In other words, in order for MonsterMind to work, the NSA would first have to covertly gain access to nearly all private communications coming in to the US from overseas.
So here’s what I mean by living in the Snowden Age- it means that every unencrypted piece of digital communication, whether it’s innocuous or not, will most likely be intercepted, copied or read by third parties. There is a solution however, which Mr. Snowden referenced at the end of the Wired article, encryption everywhere. Political views aside, we agree that encrypting everything by default, regardless of its content, is where the Internet is heading. We at Paubox are actively looking to provide leadership in this regard.
Conclusion: The Ranking Signal is Saying Something
Do we live in the Snowden Age? Google’s Ranking Signal announcement shows their tacit agreement. They now reward websites that take the time to encrypt their content. We’ve been doing that from the beginning because we value data privacy, regardless of content.
