Doing HTTPS everywhere in the .gov space

[Georgi Guninski]

On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 09:32:37AM -0800, Parker Moore wrote:
> Interesting conjectures! But... What do they have to do with https everywhere that Eric mentioned? They're very general thoughts. And even if we only have 5 years, why not enforce https on .gov sites until then? Seems like a win to me, no matter how long government survives.
> 
> Parker
> 

They have something to do with https everywhere on .gov IMHO.

I don't want to read "https everywhere on shit*".

Conjectured slave suggests use "https everywhere on conjectured
pyramid".



> > Am 14.11.2014 um 09:06 schrieb Georgi Guninski <guninski at guninski.com>:
> > 
> > Didn't know .gov dudes _openly_ post here.
> > 
> > For a discussion, let me make some conjectures about *us.gov.
> > 
> > Conjecture 1. USA is a pyramid, AKA Ponzi scheme
> > Conjecture 2. USA will die in its present form in at most 5
> > years (possibly causing troubles to other nations too).
> > Conjecture 3. USA will be bought by the People's Republic 
> > of China (PRC) in at most 5 years (possibly with other
> > investors). [This already happened to some USA corporations].
> > 
> > Best of luck,
> > -- 
> > gg
> > 
> > 
> >> On Fri, Nov 14, 2014 at 11:13:41AM -0500, Eric Mill wrote:
> >> Hey,
> >> 
> >> I wrote a piece today for my organization, 18F, about our HTTPS-everywhere
> >> policy for the .gov websites we build inside the US government:
> >> 
> >> https://18f.gsa.gov/2014/11/13/why-we-use-https-in-every-gov-website-we-make/
> >> 
> >> I wanted to give this list some extra context, since I understand the US
> >> government is a big, complicated, freighted topic. Below is my *personal*
> >> attempt to describe my workplace and is not anything close to an official
> >> description or the voice of the government.
> >> 
> >> 18F[1] is a team of ~70 people working as full time employees inside the US
> >> federal government. (The name comes from the street intersection -- 18th St
> >> & F St -- that its HQ is at in DC.) 18F as a unit was created around a year
> >> ago to be a competent, top class in-house technology team for the US
> >> federal government.
> >> 
> >> A driving idea here is that the government shouldn't need to outsource its
> >> *entire* technical brain to contractors, and that government services can
> >> be simple and even beautiful. If you've noticed what's happened over the
> >> last few years in the UK at https://www.gov.uk by the Government Digital
> >> Service[2], 18F takes a lot of inspiration from them.
> >> 
> >> 18F is housed inside the General Services Administration, an independent
> >> federal agency[3] that does as many different things as its name implies,
> >> from running all the buildings to housing the nation's data catalog at
> >> Data.gov. It's an "independent" federal agency in that it's not subject to
> >> the same level of direct executive and White House control that cabinet
> >> agencies are. It's the same kind of "independent" that lets the FCC
> >> potentially disagree with the President on net neutrality, for example.
> >> 
> >> The team has people all over the country (it has a big SF office, for
> >> example), many of which have either never been in government before, or who
> >> came in after doing the Presidential Innovation Fellows[4] program.
> >> 
> >> I joined 18F after working for 5 years on open data apps, infrastructure,
> >> and policy at the Sunlight Foundation[5], a non-profit in DC that pushes
> >> for open government. I had also done a fair amount of work around privacy,
> >> HTTPS, and ongoing judicial activity around surveillance. I get to continue
> >> doing all of that work in my personal capacity.
> >> 
> >> I say this just to try to communicate that the 18F team has some very
> >> sincere people trying to make the US government work better for people all
> >> over the world, and to do right by technology in the process. We have
> >> substantial support and autonomy to make that happen.
> >> 
> >> When it comes to HTTPS, the .gov surface area is absolutely enormous, and
> >> moving it helps move the whole Internet forward. Bringing the government in
> >> line with the rest of the web/security community (and being loud about it)
> >> is one of my big priorities at 18F, and so I wanted to share this here with
> >> you all.
> >> 
> >> -- Eric
> >> 
> >> [1] https://18f.gsa.gov/
> >> [2] https://gds.blog.gov.uk/
> >> [3]
> >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Independent_agencies_of_the_United_States_government
> >> [4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_Innovation_Fellows
> >> [5] https://sunlightfoundation.com/
> >> 
> >> -- 
> >> konklone.com | @konklone <https://twitter.com/konklone>