Information / Communication & Networks

SSL/TLS secure connections

Netscape's SSL (1995), later TLS, encrypts web connections so card numbers and passwords can cross the open internet.

Netscape released SSL 2.0 in 1995 so that browsers and servers could set up an encrypted channel using public-key cryptography, which made online shopping and banking thinkable. SSL 3.0 followed in 1996 and the IETF standardised the successor as TLS in 1999. Today it protects almost all web traffic, shown by the padlock in the address bar.