Canadian broadband management company Sandvine has released its bi-annual Global Internet Phenomena Report. It's typically used by service providers, regulatory agencies, media outlets, financial analysts and research institutions to gauge all sorts of metrics but as TorrentFreak points out, another interesting trend has emerged in the latest report.
Compared with a report from a year ago, we see a sharp spike in encrypted traffic - no doubt as a result of spying revelations from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden. In North America, encrypted Internet traffic during peak hours went from 2.29 percent last year to 3.80 percent although the biggest changes took place overseas.
In Europe, encrypted traffic during peak hours accounted for just 1.47 percent a year ago. This year, such traffic quadrupled to 6.10 percent.
The figures may not sound like a lot but you also have to remember that overall Internet traffic increased as well over the past year. As the publication points out, absolute Internet traffic increases anywhere between 20 to 40 percent each year. That means the increases are even greater than the numbers make them out to be.
The trend of a more secure Internet experience isn't going away, either. In March, for example, Google made moves to encrypt all data between its data centers and revealed that Gmail will now always use an encrypted HTTPS connection when checking or sending e-mails.