Encryption

As more and more account numbers, credit cards, and personal information begins streaming through the web, it becomes ever more important to adopt some form of data protection.

The most common form of data protection is encryption. An encrypted transmission is a transmission that contains plain text data which has been mathematically altered so as to be unreadable, but which can be transformed back to the original by a reverse mathematical algorithm.

Consider the simple encryption algorithm used in Arthur C. Clarke's 2001 of letter = letter + 1 in which HAL is turned into IBM. Notice that H + 1 = I, A + 1 = B and L + 1 = M

Of course modern cryptographic algorithms are MUCH more complex and hard to solve backwards.

Parts of an HTTP Transaction: The Response
Introduction to the Web Application Development Environment (Tools)
Public Versus Private Key Encryption