Network Programming with Go

11 Securing Communications with TLS

Five years before whistleblower Edward Snowden showed us how much we took our electronic privacy for granted, author and activist Cory Doctorow wrote, “We should treat personal electronic data with the same care and respect as weapons-grade plutonium—it is dangerous, long-lasting, and once it has leaked, there’s no getting it back.”

Prior to 2013, most people communicated on the internet by using plaintext. Social Security numbers, credit card details, passwords, sensitive emails, and other potentially embarrassing information traveled over the internet, ripe for interception by malicious actors. Most ...