Home >Security > What are: SSL, SHTTP, Shen?



These are all proposed encryption and user authentication standards for the Web. Each requires the right combination of compatible browser and server to operate, so none is yet the universal solution to the secure data transmission problem.
SSL (Secure Socket Layer) is the scheme proposed by Netscape Communications Corporation. It is a low level encryption scheme used to encrypt transactions in higher-level protocols such as HTTP, NNTP and FTP. The SSL protocol includes provisions for server authentication (verifying the server's identity to the client), encryption of data in transit, and optional client authentication (verifying the client's identity to the server). SSL is currently implemented commercially on several different browsers, including Netscape Navigator, Secure Mosaic, and Microsoft Internet Explorer, and many different servers, including ones from Netscape, Microsoft, IBM, Quarterdeck, OpenMarket and O'Reilly and Associates. Details on SSL can be found at:

http://home.netscape.com/products/security/ssl/index.html

SHTTP (Secure HTTP) is the scheme proposed by CommerceNet, a coalition of businesses interested in developing the Internet for commercial uses. It is a higher level protocol that only works with the HTTP protocol, but is potentially more extensible than SSL. Currently SHTTP is implemented for the Open Marketplace Server marketed by Open Market, Inc on the server side, and Secure HTTP Mosaic by Enterprise Integration Technologies on the client side. See here for details:

http://www.eit.com/creations/s-http/

Shen is scheme proposed by Phillip Hallam-Baker of CERN. Like SHTTP it is a high level replacement for the existing HTTP protocol. Although it has existed as a proposal for nearly two years, no browser or server vendor has implemented it. Further, the URL that described it is no longer available, so for all intents and purposes it can be considered moribund.

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