http push - http streaming method with ssl - do proxies interfere whith https traffic?

Question

My Question is related to the HTTP Streaming Method for realizing HTTP Server Push:

The "HTTP streaming" mechanism keeps a request open indefinitely. It never terminates the request or closes the connection, even after the server pushes data to the client. This mechanism significantly reduces the network latency because the client and the server do not need to open and close the connection.

The HTTP streaming mechanism is based on the capability of the server to send several pieces of information on the same response, without terminating the request or the connection. This result can be achieved by both HTTP/1.1 and HTTP/1.0 servers.

The HTTP protocol allows for intermediaries (proxies, transparent proxies, gateways, etc.) to be involved in the transmission of a response from server to the client. There is no requirement for an intermediary to immediately forward a partial response and it is legal for it to buffer the entire response before sending any data to the client (e.g., caching transparent proxies). HTTP streaming will not work with such intermediaries.

Do I avoid the descibed problems whith proxy servers if i use HTTPS?

Answer 1

HTTPS doesn't use HTTP proxies - this would make security void. HTTPS connection can be routed via some HTTP proxy or just HTTP redirector by using HTTP CONNECT command, which establishes transparent tunnel to the destination host. This tunnel is completely opaque to the proxy, and proxy can't get to know, what is transferred (it can attempt to modify the dataflow, but SSL layer will detect modification and send an alert and/or close connection), i.e. what has been encrypted by SSL.

Update: for your task you can try to use one of NULL cipher suites (if the server allows) to reduce the number of operations, such as perform no encryption, anonymous key exchange etc. (this will not affect proxy's impossibility to alter your data).