We are all used to looking for the little lock icon and the “s” in our address bar (https://…) to know the information we are sharing with a website is secure.

But, what is happening to “secure” the information we are sending?

And, what is a certificate?

And, what about those certificate warnings that pop-up now and then?

I don’t know about you, but when I read that https and the little lock icon meant my internet communications were secure, I wanted to know why and the questions above were the first ones I had.

I had a great time learning about this topic and answering these questions for myself and I figured I probably wasn’t alone in wondering about how all this works.

Keep in mind, this article is a basic non-technical introduction and we aren’t going to answer these questions in great detail. In its complete breadth, the topic of secure internet communications and encryption are part of the field of cryptography which is very large and becomes pretty complex (at least for me) very quickly. But even so, I think we can use some simple analogies to gain a basic, practical understanding of how secure communications work. Read on for an overview and a couple of useful links that provide a bit more detail.

(more…)

No Comments »       (what is this?)