Chapter 14. Hypertext Transfer Protocol
The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) protocol is a significantly young protocol. Its origin dates back to the year 1990. Its predecessor was the Gopher protocol (today nearly forgotten). The other turning point is HTTP protocol version 0.9, which has many implementations. The new version 1.1 (RFC 2616) is more complicated.
Usage
HTTP protocol serves for information searching on the Internet (or intranet).
Security
HTTP itself supports many authentication methods (such as username and password, Kerberos, etc.). Netscape introduced securing communication by means of HTTP Secure Socket Layer (SSL). SSL became the base for the Internet standard Transport Layer Security (TLS). SSL/TLS is based on PKI with ITU-T X.509 certificates.
HTTP communication using SSL or TLS (HTTP over SSL/TLS) is called HTTPS. It is interesting that the client authentication can be done either by means of the HTTP protocol or by means of the SSL/TLS layer.
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