According to the recent information, users who use a cell phone which has more than 5 years of age will be unable to access the encrypted web pages including: Facebook, Google or Twitter from January 1, 2016.
Facebook and CloudFare have announced that about 7% of Internet users still use the old phone. That means there will be millions of users are unable to access Google or Facebook from their browser. In other words, these users will be totally isolated in the Internet world.
Matthew Prince, CEO of CloudFlare said: “With an old phone, you'll almost have to say goodbye to the Internet because such devices are not equipped with a good security. Meanwhile, security is a necessary factor for any smartphone user ".
So, how to recognize an encrypted website? The sites with the lock icon and the green words "https" in the URL bar are the certified sites.
And in terms of technology, the encrypted site uses the hash algorithm to query data from a browser to a web page that you need to access. Thus, we can surf on the Internet safely and efficiently. However, experts said that SHA-1version of hash algorithm seems to be no longer safe and reliable as before.
Therefore, the CA / Browser Forum, the association that are responsible for making encryption policy said that the website has to use SHA-2 instead of SHA-1 to be authenticated or encrypted. This means, SHA-1 will not be issued from January 1, 2016 as mentioned above. And as a result, all devices which have an incompatible browser with the new version will not be able to access the Internet.
In a recent report of CloudFlare, if we stop issuing the SHA-1, 5.25% users in Yemen, 4.8% in Egypt and 6% in China will be affected. There will be at least more than 37 million users will be isolated in the Internet world from January 1, 2016.
“We do not think that stopping issuing SHA-1 would be reasonable. This will make tens of millions of users around the world isolated from the Internet especially when multiple devices are not compatible with SHA-2 version. Instead of that, we should invest in more effective security solutions, so that all users are able to access the Internet”, Alex Stamos, security Director of Facebook said on his page.
A representative of the CA / Browser Forum said that they are seriously considering the proposal of Facebook and CloudFlare. But at the same time, this association also urges partners like Google, Microsoft, Apple, and Mozilla to apply SHA-2 in their system.
Topic: Inetrnet
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