Introduction

The Internet is a fun place that consumers can buy products and trade information.   There is an infinite amount of vendors trying to convince consumers to purchase everything from stocks to Ginsu knives.  Most consumers are apprehensive to purchase goods or services over the Internet.  They feel if they buy something over the Internet, their credit card number will be broadcast across the world.

Should the consumer be afraid of purchasing products over the Internet? Yes.  There are quite a few criminals out there that would have no problem running up your credit card.   As you may have read earlier (in this site) vendors have come up with numerous products, such as digital certificates and cryptography.  These addressed some of the fears, but what about the actual connection itself.

Let's look at the current geography of the Internet.   When a consumer connects to www.amazon.com they may be bounced through 12 different routers to get to the site.  There could be someone sniffing on any one of those sites.  To ease this fear, Netscape came up with an idea.  Secure Sockets Layer.

The common definition of SSL is that is allows a secure connection between the client and server.

So what does this mean?

Let's find out, by asking some important questions.

How does it actually work?

What is a handshake and do I need to wash my hands first?

How does this relate to digital certificates?

How do I know if I am at a secure site?

What level of encryption is used?

Where can I get some more information?

Paul Palicki