Enable Web Encryption or Disable Web Encryption.

[tnbtaylor]

   

Hello,

 

Can anyone tell me if enabling web encryption in the web interface is a good idea or bad idea?  Buffalo Tech phone support said to "disable" the web encryption.  That is how I set it up now.  Wondering if there are any pros or cons with enabling encryption on the web interface?

 

Any input is always appreciated.

 

Thanks

Tom Taylor

[daoswald]

   

Pros of web encryption:  Whatever data users send and receive from your Linkstation through the web interface will be encrypted end to end (from the LS's server to the user's browser).  So if you're serving up a directory full of confidential information, encryption is a "good idea" (tm).

 

Cons of encryption:  Varying degrees of support in end-users' browsers.  IE and Firefox may support it fine.  Some obscure web-phone may not support encryption.  It's hard to guess what browser will be used to retrieve and upload.

 

Another con is that encryption *does* slow down file transfers.  There is the time needed to encode/decode at both ends, and there is an increase to the amount of data that has to be sent in order to send the item encrypted.  It's hard to quantify how significant this will be, but expect at least a 10 to 20% degradation to performance.  The performance issue is probably insignificant or inconsequential if you're serving small files.  But if you're serving multimedia (video, audio, and large photos), it will be quite noticable.  

 

It boils down to what you plan on serving.  There's probably very little reason to encrypt a photo gallery.  There is a lot of reason to encrypt a spreadsheet full of bank account numbers.  Conveniently, the photo gallery is what benefits most by speed and least by encryption.  The bank account number spreadsheet is probably small enough that speed isn't an issue, and encryption is.

 

Hope this helps.