Will it ever be possible to run all web traffic via HTTPS?

Question

I was considering what would it take (technologically) to move all the web traffic to HTTPS. I thought that computers are getting faster, and faster, so some time from now i

Answer 1

One of the big issues with using HTTPS is that its considered secure and so most web browsers don't do any caching, or at least do very limited caching.

Without the cache, you'll notice that HTTPS pages load significantly slower and a non-encrypted page would.

HTTPS should be used to protect sensitive information.

I have no idea about the CPU impact of running everything through SSL. I would say that on the client side, the CPU isn't an issue since most workstations are running idle most of the time anyway. The big program would be on the web server side due to the sheer number of concurrent requests that are being handled.

In order to get to the point that SSL is basically 'free', you'd have to have dedicated hardware for encryption (which already exists today).

EDIT: Based on the comments, the question's author suggests this is the answer he was looking for :

Using crypto is already pretty fast, particularly considering that we're using CPU cycles vs. data transmission. Crypto keys do not need to get longer. I don't think there's any technical reason why this is impractical. -David Thornley

UPDATE: I just read that Google's SPDY protocol (designed to replace HTTP) looks like it will use SSL on every connection. So, it looks like Google thinks that it's possible!

To make SSL the underlying transport protocol, for better security and compatibility with existing network infrastructure. Although SSL does introduce a latency penalty, we believe that the long-term future of the web depends on a secure network connection. In addition, the use of SSL is necessary to ensure that communication across existing proxies is not broken.