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Amazon's Silk: SaaS Is Closing the Net

Posted by Soulskill on from the how-many-gardens-can-fit-in-an-internet dept.

jfruhlinger writes "Much of the initial reaction to Amazon's Silk browser was interest in how it uses the cloud to speed up browsing. But at what cost? There are privacy concerns, of course, as Amazon will have a record of your browsing; but in a larger philosophical sense, Silk is of a piece with Facebook and Apple's iOS walled garden, an intermediary between you and the Internet."

5 of 95 comments (clear)

  1. Re:'Silk is of a piece with Facebook..." by tech4 · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Yep, other browsers like Opera have had this feature for a long time. How does it even close internet? It just speeds up your browsing.

  2. "I know it can be avoided, but [PANIC PANIC]" by arielCo · · Score: 4, Insightful
    Quoth TFA in its fifth sentence:

    Before I get accused panicking, let me emphasize that I am fully aware that Silk will let you opt out of this feature, and use the browser without EC2 participation.

    By the end of TFA, The Fine Author forgot it:

    Rather than try to contain the Internet, SaaS providers are trying to get between us and the Internet. And they're doing it with slick and catchy ways that slowly ensnare us before we even know what's going on.

    Privacy, security, and unlimited access to data are all at risk here. This is why efforts the Open Knowledge Foundation and Open Cloud Initiative are so important. These and other similar organizations represent different ways to keep access to our data limited to just who we want to have it, and no one else.

    It comes down to this: will these SaaS vendors be our partners in using the Internet, or our captors?

    Oddly, there wasn't so much fuss over Opera's compression service, which is opt-in for Opera Mobile and always on for Opera Mini.

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  3. Re:How do they handle SSL? by JordanH · · Score: 4, Funny

    I wonder how this automatic man in the middle handles SSL connections? Does it pass that traffic though? Does it open a new connection and handle the SSL handshake in the cloud?
    Sniffing people's bank accounts is a great service, would bring 1 click buy to a new level.

    0 click buy!

  4. Re:AOL better comparison by MightyYar · · Score: 5, Funny

    Both get posted way too often to Slashdot?

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  5. Re:It is SAD.... by icebraining · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Silk does MITM of HTTPS connections. My ISP doesn't.

    We will establish a secure connection from the cloud to the site owner on your behalf for page requests of sites using SSL (e.g. https://siteaddress.com./

    Emphasis mine.

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