I am a student studying computer science. I am studying computer networks and have a question.
My question is, "With the commercialization of HTTPs, has Forward Proxy lost the role of Cache, and is there a need for CDN?".
When I studied Web Cache, I realized that storing user-specific data in a public cache could cause security issues, so I searched a bit more and learned that cache control is based on the content of the HTTP header.
However, if we use HTTPs, everything except the START_LINE is encrypted and no one but the end user and the origin server can see it, so cache control would be impossible and the Forward Proxy would not be able to function as a Web Cache.
HTTPs are now being used for all pages, not just certain pages. Browsers are also warning or blocking access to pages that don't use HTTPs, so I wonder if Forward Proxy is no longer functioning as a cache.
The idea of a CDN is to have replicas in different regions to speed up user access. Maybe the ubiquity of HTTPs has made CDNs more important because the Forward Proxy is no longer able to fulfill this role? My prediction is that if HTTPs are banned and all packets are sent over HTTP, the use of CDNs will decrease.
I've been thinking about this on my own for the past 2 months since I studied Web Cache, but I'm not convinced. I don't want to leave it at that, so I wrote a question. Thank you for reading this long post.
