Secure Socket Layer and Transport Layer Security (SSL and TSL)

Secure Sockets Layer is a protocol developed by Netscape for transmitting private documents via the Internet. SSL works by using a public key to encrypt data that's transferred over the SSL connection. Most web browsers 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:. TLS is an Internet standard based on SSL version 3.0. There are only very minor differences between SSL and TLS.