NSA leaker singles out Amazon on encryption

While Edward Snowdens revelations about domestic spying by the National Security Agency have embarrassed several large tech companies, including Microsoft and Google, for enabling government snooping, one tech giant that avoided Snowdens spotlight was Amazon.

Until Tuesday, that is. At the intellectual gabfest, TED 2014, in Vancouver, B.C., Snowden criticized the lack of encryption on the websites of many U.S. Internet companies.

The reason this matters is today, if you go to look at a copy of 1984 on Amazon.com, the NSA can see a record of that, the Russian intelligence service can see a record of that, the Chinese service can see a record of that, the French service, the German service, the services of Andorra, Snowden said, speaking remotely from Russia. They can all see it because its unencrypted.

Like many Internet companies, Amazon doesnt use HyperText Transfer Protocol Secure, an encryption technology that keeps users communications, identities and web browsing private on its site when shoppers initially look though items. (Web surfers know its in use when the address for the site they are visiting begins with https.)

Amazon does, however, encrypt personal account Web pages, as well as pages where customers buy merchandise.

Snowden said he didnt mean to single out Amazon, but then proceeded to do so.

The worlds library is Amazon.com, but not only do they not support encryption by default, you cannot choose to use encryption when browsing through books, Snowden said. All companies need to move to an encrypted browsing habit by default for all users who havent taken any action or picked any special methods on their own. Thatll increase the privacy and the rights that people enjoy worldwide.

An Amazon spokesman declined to comment.

Jay Greene: jgreene@seattletimes.com

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NSA leaker singles out Amazon on encryption