SSL - What is this and what does it do?

Hi,

Seen a few posts about SSL and seen the tick box in the newsleecher options menu. But what does this do?

I'm with Astraweb if that helps

Quote:

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Originally Posted by Mr Kennedy

Hi,

Seen a few posts about SSL and seen the tick box in the newsleecher options menu. But what does this do?

I'm with Astraweb if that helps

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The data is encrypted between you and the newsprovider so no one else knows can see the data.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Secure_Sockets_Layer

Most news servers don't give SSL as standard, many don't offer it and some charge extra to provide it.

AFAIK Astraweb don't provide it. The Q should be do you need it? Astraweb have anonymous posting and no usage logs kept, as do many providers and is the concern of people's "activities" being monitored. SSL is only useful if you want to prevent your ISP from inspecting the packets to see what's in them. ISP's won't usually do this unless ordered to by an authority, who usually must show them reasonable cause.

if you go with someone like giganews you can get up to 10 SSL connections. The way you should look at it is it prevents someone from seeing what you are transferring over the pipe. Like when you order something online you name address cc info are all encrypted so only people who have the key can see what it means