Today's letter in the Networking ABC's is the letter "S".  For today's word I skipped SCTP, SNMP, self IPs, security, SIP, SNAT and spanning tree and opted for one that touches everyone who browses on the Internet.  Today's word is SSL for Secure Sockets Layer) and forms the basis for encrypting Internet traffic.

"S" is for SSL

SSL

Pronounced: Es-Es-El

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer), and it's successor TLS (Transport Layer Security) are cryptographic protocols that provide secure communications on the Internet for such things as web browsing, email, instant messaging, and other types of data transfers.  Developed by Netscape, SSL uses a cryptographic system with two keys to encrypt the data - a public key known to everyone and a private (or secret) key known only to the recipient of the data.