Let's travel back to a simpler time. You're in school, daydreaming about your crush sitting two rows in front of you, instead of listening to the insipid historical lecture spouting forth from your teacher's face. You write a note meant to titillate and entertain that special someone, and have your classmates pass it your crush's way. Your teacher sees this happening and intercepts the note. But instead of reading your witty and risque words (that would surely get you sent to the principal's office), all teacher sees is a sheet of gibberish, thanks to the secret code you and the object of your desire share.

If the internet is history class, then you, dear reader are our crush (you look great by the way), and you can think of HTTPS encryption as our secret code. We want to make sure our notes reach you without anybody else being able to read them beforehand.

For a publication that writes a lot about technology, it's important that we take steps to secure the ways that you connect to us, and HTTPS has really become online security 101. In other words, the least we could do in terms of security is encrypt the information we send and receive from you.

This is especially important to us as we continue to grow our user base. Currently, you can write product reviews, contribute stories to Public Access and comment on our stories. But we'll be building more features and ways to interact with Engadget in the coming months, and we want to make sure that you can do so using a platform as secure as we can make it.