What is SSL?

These are the padlocks next to the site name. They have two important functions. First, they give us relative assurance that the page we are currently viewing is the one the site owner, the server, wanted to show us. The second important thing is that the transmission between us and the server in terms of eavesdropping. These are two very important features that the certificate takes care of for us. Only for this to work we need an authorization center. I already tell you why? There has to be one place that both parties trust. The first is the server with the site and the second is us as the client. To get things started quickly the server sends to the authorization center, a request to sign its certificate based on a private key. Complicated, but it doesn't matter. It happens in the background, we don't know it, and from the authorization center it gets the certificate. That is: the server already has its certificate and now we, as users, want to use the site. We send information to the server that we would like to start an encrypted transmission. At this point, the server shows us its certificate, our computer checks whether this certificate presented to it, this server we are talking to, is surely the server we should be talking to? And at this point, our browser invokes the Authorization Center and checks if this certificate is the one it should be? If it is, a secure connection is made. An encrypted session is established and we exchange data in an encrypted tunnel, and basically it's already, what we would want. That is, we have: first, confidence that the page we are displaying is the one that should be displayed to us and second, that no one is eavesdropping on us.

What's all this for and what does it have to do with Androids and Windows XP? Check it out for yourself right now by clicking on the video above.