SSL
definitions
and links from www.pcwebopeadia.com
(pronounced
as separate letters) Short for Secure
Sockets Layer,
a protocol developed
by Netscape for
transmitting private documents via the Internet. SSL uses
a cryptographic
system that uses two keys
to encrypt data −
a public key known to everyone and a private or secret key known only
to the
recipient of the message. Both Netscape
Navigator
and Internet
Explorer
support SSL, and many Web sites use the
protocol to obtain confidential user information, such as credit card
numbers.By convention, URLs
that require an SSL connection start with https: instead of http:.