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Dave Winer seems to think this is a Google thing. In point of fact, HTTPS Everywhere is sponsored by the EFF and Tor. And Let's Encrypt is run by an umbrella organization whose members include the EFF and Mozilla as well as Google, Cisco, and Akamai.

I don't have much trust for Google, but I do have a lot more trust for the EFF than I do for some random software developer. Even if he's old. I'm sure Winer is well-intentioned (given his history), but he doesn't seem to have done his research very well, in this case.

The EFF's reasons for supporting https are a lot stronger than Winer seems to realize. Google's reasons, I can't address, since I'm not familiar with them, but the EFF's arguments are pretty strong. MITM attacks at the government actor level are not just hypothetical.

From the EFF's page:

Content injection is when someone adds data or code to your communications with an HTTP web page. For example, it's how GCHQ and NSA took over a Belgian ISP's computers. Content injection is also how China took down GitHub with a massive DDoS attack, dubbed "The Great Cannon". Content injection is also becoming popular with ISPs. Verizon injected tracking headers into every request made by their customers. And Comcast injects pop-ups into sites where they don't belong. All of these attacks can be stopped by HTTPS, provided it is implemented and made default on enough sites.

Now, I admit there are still some questions which aren't as frequently discussed as they should be, such as private LANs where https isn't an option. (I have http services running on such a LAN myself.) But that can be dealt with. For IP4, it's fairly easy--whitelist private ranges. For IP6, you'd have to have a way of designating your trusted network. But it can be dealt with. And the public Internet should be encrypted. Anyone who argues otherwise is simply clueless. (Or culpable.)

"Want to invisibly spy on 10 iPhone owners .. That will cost you $650,000, plus a $500,000 setup fee with an Israeli outfit called the NSO Group .. Since it is privately held, not much is known about the NSO Group’s finances"

In other words a front group for the Israeli Security Service, the same people that have full control of all telephone records in the continental United States.

NSO Group’s iPhone Zero-Days used against a UAE Human Rights Defender

This link has even more information.

Torrentfreak often has articles on using Tor and proxies to hide your online activity

And yet we have been promoting the use of Tor for circumventing the use of censorship by oppressive governments https://citizenlab.org/tag/tor/.

Perhaps the UK will be added to the list, or have they been on it the whole time?

Instead of just providing meta-commentary on the incident, it might be helpful to inject some more information about what really went down with the UN folks.

According to Deibert:

1. We were told that the banner had to be removed because of the reference to China. This was repeated on several occasions, in front of about two dozen witnesses and officials, including the UN Special Rapporteur For Human Rights, who asked that I send in a formal letter of complaint.

2. Earlier, the same officials asked us to stop circulating a small invite to the event because it contained a mention of Tibet. They even underlined it in showing it to me. Because the event was just about to start, we said that we would not be distributing any more of these invitations so it was a moot point.

3. We asked repeatedly to see any rules or regulations governing this act. They did not give us any, only referring to the "objections of a member state."

4. There were in fact many posters and banners in many of the rooms that I attended, including others in our own. The video itself shows us, at one point, taking one of the other posters we have and offering to cover up the original one. They objected to that and told us this banner must be removed.

On another matter of clarification:

The UN officials did not throw the banner on the ground. They asked us to remove it and one of our staff placed it on the ground for us to consider what to do. That's where we had the discussion. When we refused to remove it, their security guards bundled it up and took it away.

it's the Marines and not the Army or the Air Force doing it?

That's the sort of thing that shocks and calls to action any reasonable person, since we're capable of feeling empathy for people other than ourselves.

Here's a shocked Donald Rumsfeld, called to action.

According to CitizenLab the US is the greatest censor of information at the state level, and the software many countries use to censor information is producted and marketted in the US. Shouldn't we be looking in our own backyards first?

Professor Diebert taught one of my classes at the University of Toronto. He's not the executive director of ONI. Not sure about the rest of the article, but if they can't get that right... Visit http://citizenlab.org/ for more.

The article is now mirrored here:
http://www.citizenlab.org/opensource/

Oh mercy. The recursive Irony. Deibert would love that.

I'm actually one of his students. I was a participant this summer in a reality TV show he did this summer for public television in Ontario, Into America, about Canadian students traveling around the US. The previous year there was one about students trying to fight for recognition of neglected diseases. Both were organised through his lab. Interestingly enough, one of the other things going on in his lab is work on the monitoring of the Chinese governmental firewall, and the companies that provide the technology for it. This seems to be a hot topic what with the Amnesty report that came out a couple days ago and was posted here.

Always interesting to see the Professor in the news. He seems to have a knack for it. I thought Slashdot would be my last refuge... apparently not.

Oh mercy. The recursive Irony. Deibert would love that.

I'm actually one of his students. I was a participant this summer in a reality TV show he did this summer for public television in Ontario, Into America, about Canadian students traveling around the US. The previous year there was one about students trying to fight for recognition of neglected diseases. Both were organised through his lab. Interestingly enough, one of the other things going on in his lab is work on the monitoring of the Chinese governmental firewall, and the companies that provide the technology for it. This seems to be a hot topic what with the Amnesty report that came out a couple days ago and was posted here.

Always interesting to see the Professor in the news. He seems to have a knack for it. I thought Slashdot would be my last refuge... apparently not.