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SSL

SSL

Secure Sockets Layer. Protocol for transmitting documents over the internet using a private key to encrypt the data. Originally developed by Netscape and now an industry standard. cf TLS, SHTTP, HTTPS.

SSL is used in e-commerce websites for accepting credit card details on-line and for any site where it is important that the information cannot be gleaned by someone using a protocol analyzer. SSL ensures that data sent between a server and client is encrypted.

On a web server, the SSL protocol (and corresponding encryption and decryption) occurs before the processing of the HTTP header information. For this reason a web server can only host a single secure website per unique IP address.

The default TCP/IP port for SSL is port 443.

Relevant links:

http://wp.netscape.com/eng/ssl3 - SSL 3 Specification.
https://www.securetrust.com/resources/how-ssl-works - A brief introduction to SSL technology.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/245152 - How SSL works (article from Microsoft).
www.definityhealth.com/marketing/how_ssl_works.html - How SSL Works. Good high level overview.

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