Google to offer encrypted search
 

From next week Google are said to be offering https encrypted search on Google.com which is a first for a major search engine.

Source: Wired.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

Trying to rack my brain for who would want such a search... only people I can think of is child pornography searchers :( :(

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

It's a disincentive to any company thinking of emulating Phorm.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

That was my feelings as well. The more isp's try to make money from your surfing data the more this will happen.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

Surely anyone who wanted to keep their searches private? It won't prevent the police from knowing what you searched for but it would stop people monitoring network traffic from doing so.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

Unless that company was, say, a large search engine that was combined with it's own Advertising network. Also, whether it would succeed at that depends on how much import this hypothetical Phorm clone places on search results rather than the actual links clicked..

I don't think there is a legitimate reason that the average consumer would want https protected searches.

And exactly why would anyone (apart from the police and companies like Phorm) want to know what you search for?

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

In that case why is Wifi encrypted? Anybody, could just have a look, ooops like Google did with its camera cars....

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

Wifi is encrypted to help stop people using your internet for free.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

Googling medical conditions at work or on public networks? Looking for work at work? I guess not helpful when you follow a link but still. It's not something I need but I can't see how this helps people up to no good either.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

At work, possibly. Although, if anything were that personal, I wouldn't google it at work at all. Same with looking for other jobs. All it takes is for a work colleague to look at your screen at the wrong time. Not to mention the fact that the second you click on the link to go to the site, any network monitoring tools that might have picked up on the google search will almost certainly be triggered by something in the site you visit.

As for helping people up to no good, well, there are a *lot* of dodgy sites on Google.

I still don't really see how it will help anyone using google legitimately.
Wifi is encrypted because regardless of your google search results, there will be something your network carries that you need encrypted. Another good reason to encrypt is to stop unauthorised users on your network.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

But for illegitimate uses Google still have a record of what they searched for. It makes no difference if the network traffic was encrypted. I think it's just paranoia, the more I think of it there is no gain because whenever you leave google the traffic is open again.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

Because i don't want a Phorm type service installed at my ISP from potentially using my surfing data to make money or serve me adds. As soon as this is available i will switch to it.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

In fairness, I don't think it's that useful for dodgy purposes either. If the police used network monitoring tools to determine someone was searching for something illegal, I am not sure any evidence gathered would be admissible.

I wonder if Google realised how much their image would be damaged by the WiFi admission, and wanted to implement something that would be (relatively) easy to implement and would appear to be preserving people's privacy.

---------- Post added at 22:23 ---------- Previous post was at 22:19 ----------

As soon as you click a link to a non https site, these DPI systems would pick up what you are browsing. HTTPS protected searches would have little impact on DPI systems unless you never actually visit any HTTP sites.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

Anything i can do to protect myself in anyway from phorm like services from another company or my ISP is in my mind something i have to do.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

And I don't think this will offer any protection.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

I shall use this, while wearing my tinfoil hat.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

I can think of one good reason. You are doing web searches on a public/work computer and you want privacy. Let's hope they enable post requests on HTTPS instead of get requests that display the query string in thr URL. Otherwise I agree, it does seem completely pointless.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

TBH, it never occured to me until now that google didnt allow https already.

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

It does on its mail if you tick the box.

http://mail.google.com/support/bin/a...l&answer=74765

Re: Google to offer encrypted search
 

Even if you are doing a web search on a public or work computer, as soon as you go to an HTTP site, the security offered by the HTTPS search page is removed. Unless they are going to protect their cached results as well, and you only use those.