#Web Security

[berix2010]

Its crazy how its been over 45 years since IBM created this infamous slide and yet major companies are still like "nahhh just let the computer make the serious management decisions, it'll be just fine":

[digital-meat]

[miyamiwu]

I hate Cloudflare.

I didn’t care so much about it before, but now a lot of websites have turned on its automatic captcha thing that blocks the page from loading until it's done and it makes me so mad!!!!

THIS IS SO FUCKING ANNOYING!!!! ESPECIALLY ON SLOW CONNECTIONS!!!!

I click on the checkbox and it loads for a while, but then nothing happens!!! The checkbox will just go back to being unchecked, and I have to check it over and over again just to fucking access the site!!!!

So now when I go to a site and Cloudflare tries to block me, I'll just exit and go to a different site. I'll only stay if I really really want to read that content and if it can only be found on this specific site. But if I had options, I'm not staying.

[eraepoch]

[Full Text] Emerging Media Companies, Tracking Cookies, and Data Privacy -- An open letter to Critical Role, Dropout, and fellow audience members

Summary / TL;DR

Both Critical Role (CR) and Dropout have begun exclusively using links provided by third-party digital marketing solution companies in their email newsletters.

Every link in each of the newsletters (even the unsubscribe link) goes through a third-party domain which is flagged as a tracking server by the uBlock Origin browser extension.

Third-party tracking cookies are strictly unnecessary and come with a wide array of risks, including non-consensual targeted advertising, targeted misinformation, doxxing, and the potential for abuse by law enforcement.

You are potentially putting your privacy at risk every time you click on any of the links in either of these newsletters.

IMO these advertising companies (and perhaps CR/Dropout by proxy) are likely breaking the law in the EU and California by violating the GDPR and CCPA respectively.

Even if Critical Role and Dropout are not directly selling or exploiting your personal data, they are still profiting off of it by contracting with, and receiving services from, companies who almost certainly are. The value of your personal data is priced into the cost of these services.

They should stop, and can do so without any loss of web functionality.

1/7. What is happening?

Critical Role and Dropout have begun exclusively using links provided by third-party digital marketing solution companies in their email newsletters.

[ID:  A screenshot of the Dropout newsletter alongside the page’s HTML source which shows that the target destination for an anchor element in the email leads to d2xR2K04.na1.hubspotlinks.com. End ID.]

[ID: A screenshot of the CR newsletter alongside the page’s HTML source which shows that the target destination for an anchor element in the email leads to trk.klclick.com. End ID.]

The domains attached to these links are flagged as advertising trackers by the uBlock Origin browser extension.

[ID: Screenshot of a Firefox web browser. The page displays a large warning icon and reads “uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading [...] because of the following filter: `||hubspotlinks.com` found in Peter Lowe’s Ad and tracking server list. End ID.]

[ID: Screenshot of a Firefox web browser. The page displays a large warning icon and reads “uBlock Origin has prevented the following page from loading [...] because of the following filter: `||klclick1.com` found in Peter Lowe’s Ad and tracking server list. End ID.]

In both cases, every link in the newsletter goes through the flagged third-party domain, and the intended endpoint (Twitter, their store page, etc.) is completely obscured and inaccessible from within the email itself. Even the unsubscribe links feed through the tracking service.

You can test this yourself in your own email client by hovering your cursor over a link in the email without clicking it and watching to see what URL pops up. You may have noticed this yourself if you use uBlock Origin as an ad-blocker.

I don’t know for certain when this first started. It’s possible that this has been going on for a year or more at this point, or it may have started just a few months ago. Either way: it ought to stop.

2/7. What is a tracking cookie?

A tracking cookie is a unique, universally identifiable value placed on your machine by somebody with the intention of checking for that value later to identify you (or at least to identify your machine).

Tracking cookies are used by companies to create advertising behaviour profiles. These profiles are supposedly anonymous, but even if the marketing companies creating them are not lying about that (a tough sell for me personally, but your mileage may vary when it comes to corporations with 9-figure annual incomes), the data can often be de-anonymized.

If this happens, the data can be used to identify the associated user, potentially including their full name, email address, phone number, and physical address—all of which may then be associated with things like their shopping habits, hobbies, preferences, the identities of their friends and family, gender, political opinions, job history, credit score, sexuality, and even when they ovulate.

Now, it is important to note that not all cookies are tracking cookies. A cookie is just some data from a web page that persists on your machine and gets sent back to the server that put it there. Cookies in general are not necessarily malicious or harmful, and are often essential to certain web features functioning correctly (e.g. keeping the user logged in on their web browser after they close the tab). But the thing to keep in mind is that a domain has absolute control over the information that has been stored on your computer by that domain, so allowing cookies is a matter of trusting the specific domain that wants to put them there. You can look at the outgoing information being sent from your machine, but its purpose cannot be determined without knowing what is being done with it on the other side, and these marketing companies ought not to have the benefit of your doubt when they have already been flagged by privacy watchdogs.

3/7. What’s the harm?

Most urgently, as I touched on above: The main source of harm is from corporations profiting off of your private data without your informed consent. However, targeted advertising is actually the least potentially harmful outcome of tracking cookies.

1/6. Data brokers

A data broker is an individual or company that specializes in collecting personal data (such as personal income, ethnicity, political beliefs, geolocation data, etc.) and selling or licensing such information to third parties for a variety of uses, such as background checks conducted by employers and landlords, two universally benevolent groups of people.

There are varying regulations around the world limiting the collection of information on individuals, and the State of California passed a law attempting to address this problem in 2018, following in the footsteps of the EU’s GDPR, but in the jurisdiction of the United States there is no federal regulation protecting consumers from data brokers. In fact, due to the rising interest in federal regulation, data broker firms lobbied to the tune of $29 million in the year 2020 alone.

2/6. De-anonymization techniques

Data re-identification or de-anonymization is the practice of combining datasets (such as advertising profiles) and publicly available information (such as scraped data from social media profiles) in order to discover patterns that may reveal the identities of some or all members of a dataset otherwise intended to be anonymous.

Using the 1990 census, Professor Latanya Sweeney of the Practice of Government and Technology at the Harvard Kennedy School found that up to 87% of the U.S. population can be identified using a combination of their 5-digit zip code, gender, and date of birth. [Link to the paper.]

Individuals whose datasets are re-identified are at risk of having their private information sold to organizations without their knowledge or consent. Once an individual’s privacy has been breached as a result of re-identification, future breaches become much easier: as soon as a link is made between one piece of data and a person’s real identity, that person is no longer anonymous and is at far greater risk of having their data from other sources similarly compromised.

3/6. Doxxing

Once your data has been de-anonymized, you are significantly more vulnerable to all manner of malicious activity: from scam calls and emails to identity theft to doxxing. This is of particular concern for members of minority groups who may be targeted by hate-motivated attacks.

4/6. Potential for abuse by government and law enforcement

Excerpt from “How period tracking apps and data privacy fit into a post-Roe v. Wade climate” by Rina Torchinsky for NPR:

Millions of people use apps to help track their menstrual cycles. Flo, which bills itself as the most popular period and cycle tracking app, has amassed 43 million active users. Another app, Clue, claims 12 million monthly active users. The personal health data stored in these apps is among the most intimate types of information a person can share. And it can also be telling. The apps can show when their period stops and starts and when a pregnancy stops and starts. That has privacy experts on edge because this data—whether subpoenaed or sold to a third party—could be used to suggest that someone has had or is considering an abortion. ‘We're very concerned in a lot of advocacy spaces about what happens when private corporations or the government can gain access to deeply sensitive data about people’s lives and activities,’ says Lydia X. Z. Brown, a policy counsel with the Privacy and Data Project at the Center for Democracy and Technology. ‘Especially when that data could put people in vulnerable and marginalized communities at risk for actual harm.’

Obviously Critical Role and Dropout are not collecting any sort of data related to their users’ menstrual cycles, but the thing to keep in mind is that any data that is exposed to third parties can be sold and distributed without your knowledge or consent and then be used by disinterested—or outright malicious—actors to de-anonymize your data from other sources, included potentially highly compromising data such as that collected by these period-tracking apps. Data privacy violations have compounding dangers, and should be proactively addressed wherever possible. The more of your personal data exists in the hands of third parties, the more it is to be de-anonymized.

5/6. Targeted misinformation

Data brokers are often incredibly unscrupulous actors, and will sell your data to whomever can afford to buy it, no questions asked. The most high-profile case of the consequences of this is the Facebook—Cambridge Analytica data scandal, wherein the personal data of Facebook users were acquired by Cambridge Analytica Ltd. and compiled alongside information collected from other data brokers. By giving this third-party app permission to acquire their data back in 2015, Meta (then Facebook) also gave the app access to information on their users’ friend networks: this resulted in the data of some 87 million users being collected and exploited.

The data collected by Cambridge Analytica was widely used by political strategists to influence elections and, by and large, undermine democracy around the world: While its parent company SCL had been influencing elections in developing countries  for decades, Cambridge Analytica focused more on the United Kingdom and the United States. CEO Alexander Nix said the organization was involved in 44 American political races in 2014. In 2016, they worked for Donald Trump’s presidential campaign as well as for Leave.EU, one of the organisations campaigning for the United Kingdom to leave the European Union.

6/6. The Crux: Right to Privacy Violations

Even if all of the above were not concerns, every internet user should object to being arbitrarily tracked on the basis of their right to privacy. Companies should not be entitled to create and profit from personality profiles about you just because you purchased unrelated products or services from them. This right to user privacy is the central motivation behind laws like the EU’s GDPR and California’s CCPA (see Section 6).

4/7. Refuting Common Responses

1/3. “Why are you so upset? This isn’t a big deal.”

Commenter: Oh, if you’re just talking about third party cookies, that’s not a big deal … Adding a cookie to store that ‘this user clicked on a marketing email from critical role’ is hardly [worth worrying about].

Me: I don’t think you understand what tracking cookies are. They are the digital equivalent of you going to a drive through and someone from the restaurant running out of the store and sticking a GPS monitor onto your car.

Commenter: Kind of. It’s more like slapping a bumper sticker on that says, in restaurant-ese, ‘Hi I’m [name] and I went to [restaurant] once!’

This is actually an accurate correction. My metaphor was admittedly overly simplistic, but the correction specifies only so far as is comfortable for the commenter. If we want to construct a metaphor that is as accurate as possible, it would go something like this:

You drive into the McDonald’s parking lot. As you are pulling in, unbeknownst to you, a Strange Man pops out of a nearby bush (that McDonald’s has allowed him to place here deliberately for this express purpose), and sticks an invisible bumper sticker onto the back of your car. The bumper sticker is a tracker that tells the Strange Man which road you took to drive to McDonald’s, what kind of car you drive, and what (if anything) you ordered from McDonald’s while you were inside. It might also tell him where you parked in the parking lot, what music you were listening to in your car on the way in, which items you looked at on the menu and for how long, if you went to the washroom, which washroom you went into, how long you were in the washroom, and the exact location of every step you took inside the building.

Now, as soon as you leave the McDonald’s, the bumper sticker goes silent and stops being able to report information. But, let’s say next week you decide to go to the Grocery Store, and (again, unbeknownst to you), the Strange Man also has a deal with the Grocery Store. So as you’re driving into the grocery store’s parking lot, he pops out of another bush and goes to put another bumper sticker onto your car. But as he’s doing so, he notices the bumper sticker he’s already placed there a week ago that only he can see (unless you’ve done the car-equivalent of clearing your browser cache), and goes “ah, it’s Consumer #1287499290! I’ll make sure to file all of this new data under my records for Consumer #1287499290!”

You get out of your car and start to walk into the Grocery Store, but before you open the door, the Strange Man whispers to the Grocery Store: “Hey, I know you’re really trying to push your cereal right now, want me to make it more likely that this person buys some cereal from you?” and of course the Grocery Store agrees—this was the whole reason they let him set up that weird parking lot bush in the first place.

So the Strange Man runs around the store rearranging shelves. He doesn’t know your name (all the data he collects is strictly anonymous after all!) but he does know that you chose the cutesy toy for your happy meal at McDonald’s, so he changes all of the cereal packaging labels in the store to be pastel-coloured and covered in fluffy bears and unicorns. And maybe you were already going to the Grocery Store to buy cereal, and maybe you’re actually very happy to buy some cereal in a package that seems to cater specifically to your interests, but wouldn’t you feel at least a little violated if you found out that this whole process occurred without your knowledge? Especially if you felt like you could trust the people who owned the Grocery Store? They’re not really your friend or anything, but maybe you thought that they were compassionate and responsible members of the community, and part of the reason that you shopped at their store was to support that kind of business.

2/3. “Everyone does it, get over it.”

Commenter: [The marketing company working with CR] is an industry standard at this point, particularly for small businesses. Major partner of Shopify, a fairly big player. If you don't have a software development team, using industry standard solutions like these is the easy, safe option.

This sounds reasonable, but it actually makes it worse, not better, that Critical Role and Dropout are doing this. All this excuse tells me is that most businesses using Shopify (or at least the majority of those that use its recommended newsletter service) have a bush for the Strange Man set up in their parking lot.

Contracting with these businesses is certainly the easy option, but it is decidedly not the safe one.

3/3. “They need to do it for marketing reasons.”

Commenter 1: Email marketing tools like [this] use tracking to measure open and click rates. I get why you don’t want to be tracked, but it’s very hard to run a sizeable email newsletter without any user data.

Commenter 2: I work in digital marketing … every single email you get from a company has something similar to this. Guaranteed. This looks totally standard.

I am a web programmer by trade. It is my full time job. Tracking the metrics that Critical Role and Dropout are most likely interested in does not require embedding third-party tracking cookies in their fans’ web browsers. If you feel comfortable taking my word on that, feel free to skip the next section. If you’re skeptical (or if you just want to learn a little bit about how the internet works) please read on.

5/7. Tracking cookies are never necessary

We live in a technocracy. We live in a world in which technology design dictates the rules we live by. We don’t know these people, we didn’t vote for them in office, there was no debate about their design. But yet, the rules that they determine by the design decisions they make—many of them somewhat arbitrary—end up dictating how we will live our lives. —Latanya Sweeney

1/3. Definitions

A website is a combination of 2 computer programs. One of the two programs runs on your computer (laptop/desktop/phone/etc.) and the other runs on another computer somewhere in the world. The program running on your computer is the client program. The program running on the other computer is the server program.

A message sent from the client to the server is a request. A message sent from the server to the client is a response.

Cookies are bits of data that the server sends to the client in a response that the client then sends back to the server as an attachment to its subsequent requests.

A session is a series of sequential interactions between a client and server. When either of the two programs stops running (e.g. when you close a browser tab), the session is ended and any future interactions will take place in a new session.

A URL is a Uniform Resource Locator. You may also sometimes see the initialism URI—in which the ‘I’ stands for Identifier—but they effectively refer to the same thing, which is the place to find a specific thing on the internet. For our purposes, a “link” and a URL mean the same thing.

2/3. What do Critical Role and Dropout want?

These media companies (in my best estimation) are contracting with the digital advertising companies in order to get one or more of the following things:

Customer identity verification (between sessions)

Marketing campaign analytics

Customer preference profiles

Customer behaviour profiles

3/3. How can they get these things without tracking cookies?

Accounts. Dropout has an account system already. As Beacon is a thing now I have to assume Critical Role does as well, therefore this is literally already something they can do without any additional parties getting involved.

URL Query Parameters. So you want to know which of your social media feeds is driving the most traffic to your storefront. You could contract a third-party advertising company to do this for you, but as we have seen this might not be the ideal option. Instead, when posting your links to said feeds, attach a little bit of extra text to the end of the URL link so: becomes or or even These extra bits of information at the end of a URL are query parameters, and act as a way for the client to specify some instructions for the server when sending a request. In effect, a URL with query parameters allows the client to say to the server “I want this thing under these conditions”. The benefit of this approach is, of course, that you actually know precisely what information is being collected (the stuff in the parameters) and precisely what is being done with it, and you’ve avoided exposing any of your user data to third parties.

Internal data collection. Optionally associate a user’s email address with their preferences on the site. Prompt them to do this whenever they purchase anything or do any action that might benefit from having some saved preference, informing them explicitly when you do so and giving them the opportunity to opt-out.

Internal data collection. The same as above, but let the user know you are also tracking their movements while on your site. You can directly track user behaviour down to every single mouse movement if you really want to—again, no need to get an outside party involved to snoop on your fans. But you shouldn’t do that because it’s a little creepy!

At the end of the day, it will of course be more work to set up and maintain these things, and thus it will inevitably be more expensive—but that discrepancy in expense represents profit that these companies are currently making on the basis of violating their fans’ right to privacy.

6/7. Breaking the Law

The data subject shall have the right to object, on grounds relating to his or her particular situation, at any time to processing of personal data concerning him or her [...] The controller shall no longer process the personal data unless the controller demonstrates compelling legitimate grounds for the processing which override the interests, rights and freedoms of the data subject or for the establishment, exercise or defence of legal claims. Where personal data are processed for direct marketing purposes, the data subject shall have the right to object at any time to processing of personal data concerning him or her for such marketing, which includes profiling to the extent that it is related to such direct marketing. Where the data subject objects to processing for direct marketing purposes, the personal data shall no longer be processed for such purposes. At the latest at the time of the first communication with the data subject, the right referred to in paragraphs 1 and 2 shall be explicitly brought to the attention of the data subject and shall be presented clearly and separately from any other information. — General Data Protection Regulation, Art. 21

Nobody wants to break the law and be caught. I am not accusing anyone of anything and this is just my personal speculation on publicly-available information. I am not a lawyer; I merely make computer go beep-boop. If you have any factual corrections for this or any other section in this document please leave a comment and I will update the text with a revision note. Before I try my hand at the legal-adjacent stuff, allow me to wade in with the tech stuff.

Cookies are sometimes good and sometimes bad. Cookies from someone you trust are usually good. Cookies from someone you don’t know are occasionally bad. But you can take proactive measures against bad cookies. You should always default to denying any cookies that go beyond the “essential” or “functional” categorizations on any website of which you are remotely suspicious. Deny as many cookies as possible. Pay attention to what the cookie pop-ups actually say and don’t just click on the highlighted button: it is usually “Accept All”, which means that tracking and advertising cookies are fair game from the moment you click that button onward. It is illegal for companies to arbitrarily provide you a worse service for opting out of being tracked (at least it is in the EU and California).

It is my opinion (and again, I am not a legal professional, just a web developer, so take this with a grain of salt) that the links included in the newsletter emails violate both of these laws. If a user of the email newsletter residing in California or the EU wishes to visit any of the links included in said email without being tracked, they have no way of doing so. None of the actual endpoints are available in the email, effectively forcing the user to go through the third-party domain and submit themselves to being tracked in order to utilize the service they have signed up for. Furthermore, it is impossible to unsubscribe directly from within the email without also submitting to the third-party tracking.

[ID: A screenshot of the unsubscribe button in the CR newsletter alongside the page HTML which shows that the target destination for the anchor element is a trk.klclick.com page. End ID.]

As a brief aside: Opening the links in a private/incognito window is a good idea, but will not completely prevent your actions from being tracked by the advertiser. My recommendation: install uBlock Origin to warn you of tracking domains (it is a completely free and open-source project available on most major web browsers), and do not click on any links in either of these newsletters until they change their practices.

Now, it may be the case that the newsletters are shipped differently to those residing in California or the EU (if you are from either of these regions please feel free to leave a comment on whether or not this is the case), but ask yourself: does that make this any better? Sure, maybe then Critical Role and Dropout (or rather, the advertising companies they contract with) aren’t technically breaking the law, but it shows that the only thing stopping them from exploiting your personal data is potential legal repercussions, rather than any sort of commitment to your right to privacy. But I expect that the emails are not, in fact, shipping any differently in jurisdictions with more advanced privacy legislation—it wouldn’t be the first time a major tech giant blatantly flaunted EU regulations.

Without an additional browser extension such as uBlock Origin, a user clicking on the links in these emails may not even be aware that they have interacted with the advertising agency at all, let alone what sort of information that agency now has pertaining to them, nor do they have any ability to opt out of this data collection.

For more information about your right to privacy—something that only those living in the EU or California currently have—you can read explanations of the legislations at the following links (take note that these links, and all of the links embedded in this paper, are anchored directly to the destinations they purport to be, and do not sneakily pass through an additional domain before redirecting you):

7/7. Conclusion

Never attribute to malice that which can be adequately explained by neglect, ignorance or incompetence. —Hanlon’s Razor

The important thing to make clear here is this: Even if Critical Role and Dropout are not directly selling or exploiting your personal data, they are still profiting off of it by contracting with, and receiving services from, companies whom I believe are. You may not believe me.

I do not believe that the management teams at Critical Role and Dropout are evil or malicious. Ignorance seems to be the most likely cause of this situation. Someone at some marketing company told them that this type of thing was helpful, necessary, and an industry standard, and they had no reason to doubt that person’s word. Maybe that person had no reason to doubt the word of the person who told them. Maybe there are a few people in that chain, maybe quite a few. I do not expect everyone running a company to be an expert in this stuff (hell, I’m nowhere close to being an expert in this stuff myself—I only happened to notice this at all because of a browser extension I just happened to have installed to block ads), but what I do expect is that they change their behaviour when the potential harms of their actions have been pointed out to them, which is why I have taken the time to write this.

PS. To the employees of Critical Role and Dropout

It is my understanding that these corporations were both founded with the intention of being socially responsible alongside turning a profit. By using services like the ones described above, you are, however unintentionally, profiting off of the personal datasets of your fans that are being compiled and exploited without their informed consent. You cannot say, implicitly or explicitly, “We’re not like those other evil companies! We care about more than just extracting as much money from our customers as possible!” while at the same time utilizing these services, and it is my hope that after reading this you will make the responsible choice and stop doing so.

Thank you for reading,

era

Originally Published: 23 May 2024

Last Updated: 28 May 2024

[blackmoreops]

15 Best Free Resources for Malicious URLs and Phishing Links for Cybersecurity Testing

In today’s rapidly evolving cybersecurity landscape, having access to reliable sources of malicious URLs, phishing links, and malware samples is essential for security professionals, penetration testers, and IT administrators. Whether you’re validating your security controls, conducting security awareness training, or researching new threat vectors, accessing known malicious content in a…

[hackbaga]

"OS Command Injection is a type of cyberattack where an attacker injects malicious commands into the operating system through vulnerabilities in software or applications. These commands are executed directly by the system, allowing the attacker to access sensitive data or take complete control of the device. The simple case refers to elementary scenarios in which basic exploit techniques are used."

[zoomvis]

Isn’t this like the 3rd one this month.

The cybersecurity at Rockstar for some reason:

[sunshinel3mon]

Elevate Your Web Security Game with Sucuri

In our increasingly digital world, website security is not just optional; it’s essential. Now, imagine you’re on the way to an important meeting, and you get that dreaded email: “Your website has been hacked.” Nightmare, right? You need a security solution that stands guard 24/7 so you can focus on what truly matters. That solution is Sucuri. Sucuri: The All-In-One Security Platform Done with…

[leonbasinwriter]

In the age of AI, authentication shouldn't be a static barrier; it should be an intelligent, adaptive, and engaging experience. Within @leonbasinwriter Intelligence Singularity, access is not simply granted—it's earned through a dynamic interplay with AI itself.

[bloggertipstalk]

7 Best WordPress Security Plugins to BulletProof Your Site

If you’re running a website, whether it’s a blog, a small business site, or something more significant, you know how important it is to protect it.  Think of your website as your house online. You wouldn’t leave the doors unlocked and the windows wide open, right? You’d want to keep the bad guys out. Well, that’s where WordPress security plugins come in. WordPress is super popular – over 43% of…

[the-rankon]

Mastering Web Security: How to Protect Your Website from Hacks

In today’s digital age, the security of your website is more important than ever. A single security breach can lead to data loss, identity theft, or a damaged reputation, not to mention the potential loss of customers.

[softloomitsolutions]

Key Benefits of HTTPS for Both SEO and User Engagement

Nowadays, website security isn't just a best practice - it's essential. One of the most important elements in ensuring website security and fostering trust with your audience is HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure). While HTTPS has long been a vital factor for secure data transmission, its role in search engine optimization (SEO) and user engagement has become even more critical in recent years. Let’s dive into the key benefits of HTTPS and explore how it directly impacts both your SEO rankings and user experience.

What Is HTTPS?

Before we explore the benefits, let’s quickly clarify what HTTPS is. HTTPS is the secure version of HTTP, the protocol used for transmitting data over the internet. When a website uses HTTPS, all communication between the user's browser and the website is encrypted using SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) or TLS (Transport Layer Security). This encryption ensures that sensitive information, such as personal data or payment details, is transmitted securely and cannot be intercepted by hackers.

1. Improved SEO Rankings

Google has made it clear that HTTPS is a ranking factor in its algorithm. While it is considered a “lightweight” ranking signal compared to other factors like content quality or backlinks, it still plays a role in improving your website's position in search results. Websites with HTTPS are more likely to rank higher than their HTTP counterparts, giving them a competitive edge. Google’s emphasis on HTTPS has only grown stronger over time, as it continuously works to prioritize user safety and data protection.

2. Enhanced User Trust and Credibility

User trust is a key component of successful online engagement. The presence of HTTPS on your site is visually indicated by the small padlock icon in the browser’s address bar. This simple icon reassures visitors that their data is secure, which is especially important when they are asked to provide personal or financial information.

When users trust your website, they are more likely to stay longer, explore more pages, and convert (whether it’s signing up for a newsletter or completing a purchase). If your website lacks HTTPS, modern browsers like Google Chrome will label it as “Not Secure,” which could lead to users bouncing off your site immediately.

3. Reduced Bounce Rates and Improved Dwell Time

The presence of HTTPS can also directly affect user behavior on your website. Websites that appear secure are more likely to be trusted by visitors, encouraging them to interact with the content and stay longer.

When users trust your website, they are more likely to engage with your content, browse through different pages, and make purchases. This can lead to a reduction in bounce rates (the percentage of visitors who leave your website after viewing only one page) and an increase in dwell time (the amount of time visitors spend on your site). Both of these user experience metrics indirectly influence SEO rankings.

4. Better Page Load Speed with HTTP/2 Support

HTTPS and performance improvements go hand in hand, especially when it comes to the latest web technologies. Websites using HTTPS can take advantage of HTTP/2, a newer protocol that speeds up page load times by enabling multiple requests to be sent at once. Faster websites not only provide better user experiences but are also favored by search engines like Google.

Google has long emphasized the importance of fast-loading websites, and studies have shown that even a one-second delay in page load time can result in a significant drop in conversions. By adopting HTTPS, you are ensuring that your website is optimized for speed, which is a crucial factor for both user engagement and SEO.

5. Secure Referrer Data for Improved Analytics

Another benefit of HTTPS is its ability to preserve referral data. When users navigate from one HTTPS site to another, the referrer information is retained and passed on securely, allowing you to track the source of your traffic more accurately.

On the other hand, if your site uses HTTP, referrer data is lost, and traffic is classified as “direct” in your analytics tools. This can make it harder to assess the effectiveness of your marketing campaigns or understand where your website traffic is coming from.

With HTTPS, you get more accurate data in Google Analytics, which can help you refine your SEO strategy and enhance user engagement efforts.

6. Enhanced Mobile Experience and AMP Support

With mobile-first indexing becoming a priority for Google, ensuring that your website is optimized for mobile users is more important than ever. HTTPS is essential for mobile optimization, especially if you're using Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP). AMP is a framework designed to deliver fast-loading, mobile-friendly pages, and it requires HTTPS to function.

If your website is HTTPS-enabled, you are already taking the necessary steps toward improving the mobile user experience, which is increasingly important in SEO rankings.

7. Protection Against Cyber Threats

While HTTPS is not a foolproof solution against all cyber threats, it does provide an essential layer of protection against many common security risks, such as man-in-the-middle attacks, data breaches, and phishing attempts. This means your website, users, and data are better protected from malicious actors.

Users are more likely to engage with and return to a website that they perceive as secure. By prioritizing HTTPS, you’re not only protecting your users but also safeguarding your brand’s reputation.

Conclusion

In today's competitive online landscape, HTTPS is more than just a security feature—it's a crucial factor for both SEO and user engagement. By securing your website with HTTPS, you improve your SEO rankings, as Google gives preference to secure websites. This leads to better visibility in search results, builds trust with users, reduces bounce rates, enhances page load speeds, and ensures more accurate tracking of referral data. Ultimately, the combination of HTTPS and SEO helps create a more secure, seamless, and user-friendly experience, encouraging visitors to engage with your content and return for more.

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Orange Dice: Your Go-To Partner for Responsive and Fast-Loading Websites in Dubai

In today’s fast-paced digital world, businesses must have a website that is not only visually appealing but also fast-loading and responsive. A sluggish or poorly designed website can turn potential customers away and negatively affect your business. To avoid this, it's essential to partner with a web development company that understands the importance of both design and performance. Orange Dice is a leading web development company specializing in creating websites that are not only aesthetically pleasing but also fast and responsive. Based in the UAE, Orange Dice has earned a reputation for delivering cutting-edge web solutions that meet the unique needs of businesses in a highly competitive market.

For businesses seeking Webdesign in Dubai, Orange Dice stands out as a leader in providing high-quality, responsive, and fast-loading websites. The company focuses on optimizing every aspect of web design and development to ensure that users have a seamless experience regardless of the device they are using. Whether you are a small startup or an established enterprise, Orange Dice offers tailored solutions that are designed to drive success in the digital marketplace.

The Importance of a Fast-Loading and Responsive Website

A website is often the first point of contact between your business and potential customers. With so much competition online, the speed and responsiveness of your site can make or break your chances of making a good first impression. Studies have shown that users expect a website to load within two seconds, and 40% of visitors will abandon a site if it takes longer than three seconds to load. In addition, a responsive website ensures that your site functions properly across all devices, including desktops, tablets, and smartphones.

By ensuring that your website is both fast-loading and responsive, you increase your chances of retaining visitors, improving user engagement, and converting leads into customers. This is where Orange Dice excels. They understand the intricacies of website performance and build sites that are optimized for speed and user experience from the ground up.

How Orange Dice Ensures Your Website Stays Ahead of the Competition

1. Responsive Design

With mobile internet usage surpassing desktop usage in recent years, it is crucial for businesses to have a website that adapts to different screen sizes. Orange Dice specializes in creating responsive websites that adjust seamlessly across various devices. This ensures that no matter where or how users access your site, they get an optimal experience. A responsive website also helps improve your rankings on search engines like Google, as mobile-friendliness is a key factor in search engine algorithms.

2. Fast Loading Speed

Website loading speed plays a significant role in user experience and search engine rankings. Slow websites not only frustrate users but also negatively impact your SEO efforts. Orange Dice employs the latest web development techniques to ensure that your website loads quickly, even for users with slower internet connections. By optimizing images, minimizing CSS and JavaScript files, and leveraging browser caching, Orange Dice reduces load times, ensuring that your site performs at its best.

3. SEO-Optimized Development

Orange Dice doesn’t just stop at creating visually stunning websites—they also focus on SEO optimization during the development process. SEO-friendly coding, mobile responsiveness, and fast loading speeds all contribute to a better search engine ranking, which in turn increases your website’s visibility. Orange Dice's approach to web development ensures that your site is built in line with SEO best practices, giving your business a competitive edge in search engine results pages (SERPs).

4. User-Centric Design

User experience (UX) is a cornerstone of any successful website. Orange Dice takes a user-first approach to web design, ensuring that every aspect of your site is intuitive and easy to navigate. Whether it's simplifying the layout, enhancing the site’s navigation, or ensuring that key information is easy to find, Orange Dice makes sure your website is designed with the user in mind. This not only keeps visitors on your site longer but also increases the likelihood of converting them into customers.

5. Content Management System (CMS)

One of the challenges businesses often face is managing and updating their websites. With a powerful and intuitive Content Management System (CMS) built by Orange Dice, businesses can easily update their website content without needing advanced technical knowledge. The CMS allows you to add, edit, or delete content on your website, keeping it up-to-date and relevant. Whether you need to update your product listings, post new blog articles, or make minor adjustments to your web pages, Orange Dice’s CMS gives you the control you need.

Custom Web Solutions for Businesses of All Sizes

Every business has unique needs, and a one-size-fits-all approach doesn’t work in web development. Orange Dice offers tailored web solutions designed to meet the specific requirements of each client. From small businesses looking to establish an online presence to large corporations needing complex web applications, Orange Dice has the expertise and experience to deliver high-quality web solutions that are scalable and reliable.

Web Security

In today’s digital environment, security is a top concern for both businesses and consumers. A secure website protects sensitive customer information and helps build trust. Orange Dice prioritizes website security by using the latest encryption technologies, secure coding practices, and regular security audits to ensure that your website remains protected from cyber threats.

E-Commerce Solutions

For businesses looking to sell products or services online, having a robust e-commerce platform is essential. Orange Dice specializes in building e-commerce websites that are not only easy to use but also optimized for conversions. Their e-commerce solutions are designed to provide a seamless shopping experience, from browsing products to completing purchases, ensuring that your customers enjoy a smooth and hassle-free shopping experience.

Branding and Content Writing

A website isn’t just about design and performance—it’s also a reflection of your brand. Orange Dice offers branding services that help businesses create a cohesive and memorable online presence. Additionally, they provide professional content writing services that ensure your website is filled with high-quality, engaging, and SEO-optimized content that resonates with your audience.

Why Choose Orange Dice?

Choosing the right web development partner can make a significant difference in the success of your online presence. With years of experience in the industry and a team of highly skilled developers and designers, Orange Dice is the go-to partner for businesses looking to create fast, responsive, and visually stunning websites. Their comprehensive range of services, including web development, SEO, digital marketing, and more, ensures that all aspects of your online presence are optimized for success.

Conclusion

In an era where digital interactions are at the forefront of business success, having a fast-loading and responsive website is essential. Orange Dice is committed to delivering high-performance websites that not only look great but also perform exceptionally well. Whether you’re a business in need of Webdesign in Dubai or a company looking to improve its online visibility, Orange Dice offers the expertise and solutions necessary to achieve your goals. Partner with Orange Dice today and take the first step toward transforming your online presence.

[depressionbaby18]

Whonix

What's the point of using whonix and other privacy related things when modern Intel and Amd have chips that can read your information at hardware? it sure helps to use open source software and all of that but if we're deemed to use old vintage ass antique prehistoric hardware just to protect my sensitivy information that a bit too much, can someone explain?