Thanks to some fancy math, it just got a lot harder for someone to snoop on your Facebook conversations. And that's all thanks to Facebook's decision to automatically scramble the communications stream from your keyboard to the actual site itself.
The move actually entails changing the method your communications take before they land on a Facebook page. What used to be a wide-open, snoop-able, stream of communications emanating from your keyboard to your latest status update is now protected by a secure method called "HTTPS."
In January 2011, Facebook allowed users to opt into HTTPS, and alluded to a future default setting. The project of scaling HTTPS for all Facebook users while preserving the site’s performance presented a technical challenge, but Facebook says that it’s addressed those concerns. This is a very welcome move from CDT’s perspective as HTTPS provides a secure connection between users and websites. While users can opt out of the switch, Facebook’s move to HTTPS by default within North America (and to the rest of the world early next year) will provide users with heightened security as they use the world’s most popular social network service.
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