>>Contribute to the SSL Effort. Visit http://www.overbyte.be/eng/ssl.html
> I have heard somewhere that a web server must have a certificate for SSL > at > a cost of $500 to be able to use the SSL for all visitors. Is that still > true, or is your SSL project eliminating that need for Delphi servers? There is one big misunderstanding about SSL certificates: certificates are defenitely not mandatory to have SSL working and crypting data on the fly. Certificates are only needed when a client want to make sure he is connected to the server it think it is connected, or when a server want top make sure a connected client is the one it pretend to be. Without certificate, you have the problem of "the man in the middle". This problem is when someone (a hacker in the enterprise or in the ISP) intercept the communication. In that situation, a client THINK it is connected to a given website but the man in the middle redirected all communication to one of its server which reproduce the look and feel of the real server. With certificate, the man in the middle has to steal the certificate which is much much more difficult than simply intercepting all communications. Similary, without certificate, anyone can connect to a server and the server can't know if the client is really the real one (password can be seen while typing for example). With a certificate, the hacker has to steal the certificate to be seen as a real client. Now back to ICS-SSL: you can use standard certificates (you can even export those you already have installed in IE) or you can build your own certificates at both client and server side, and setup your own certification autority (CA). So you can have free certificates ! ICS-SSL is based on OpenSSL. See http://mia.ece.uic.edu/~papers/volans/settingupCA.html as an example of what you can do. See also http://www.google.com/search?q=openssl+certification+autority Contribute to the SSL Effort. Visit http://www.overbyte.be/eng/ssl.html -- [EMAIL PROTECTED] The author of the freeware multi-tier middleware MidWare The author of the freeware Internet Component Suite (ICS) http://www.overbyte.be _______________________________________________ Delphi mailing list -> [email protected] http://www.elists.org/mailman/listinfo/delphi
