Ask Steve

Some times when you click on a link you will get go to a “secure” page. Secure pages are special web pages designed for the secure transfer of sensitive information like for example your credit card information when you buy something online. You can always double check to see if you are on a secure page by look at the lock symbol in the bottom corner

That image means that you are on a site that is guaranteed to allow the safe passage of your sensitive information. If you remember from lesson one I stated that the internet is probably the safest place to use your credit card and the secure pages are why. In order for the lock symbol to show up on your page there are many things that have happened to protect you. First the ISP has to apply for a “Secure Certificate”. A Secure Certificate is sold them from a company that specializes in verifying that the information being passed from your computer across the internet to their server is safe. Once the web site is set up to use this certificate the lock will appear at the bottom of the page.
When you get to this web site and decide to buy something you the process of securing your transaction begins. Your computer sends a request to the server requesting a secure channel. The server that the web site you are buying from is on sends an identification number (certificate ID) both to you and to company that is securing the transaction. Think of this as it telling you its special secret password that only it and the security company know. The even better news is that before hand the web site and the security company have worked a special way of creating a unique password that applies only to you, only to this transaction and will only ever be used once. Now that your computer has the password and the name of the security company, your computer sends to the special security number to the security company. The security company verifies that the website you are buying from gave it the special arranged unique information in the proper format. Then the security company verifies that you and only you are the only one that has been given this information. Then it verifies that you are you by checking your password and your connection to the website. After the security company has verified that the information that is being passed is being done so only between you and the web site it then tells the web sites computer and your computer a special code called 128bit Encryption that you can use to pass information back and forth to each other while you are in this secure mode. So not only is the transaction specially checked to be sure no one is watching but even after all that for lack of a better term the 2 computers talk in a brand new language to each other the whole time they are passing the information so that IF anyone figured out how to listen all they would hear is a foreign language they don’t know.
Like any other form of security there are, of course, ways that it can be broken, however the work that is required to do so is more complex then literally any other means of credit card transaction that exists.

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 26th, 2008 at 10:12 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.