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Why SSL was renamed to TLS in late 90s (2014)

tim.dierks.org

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Re: Why SSL was renamed to TLS in late 90s (2014)

#41

Post by LukeShu »

jeroenhd wrote: post #5
pkulak wrote: post #4

“Transport Layer Security” really is a better name though. I also like to say “TLS”. Two Ses in a row makes you sound like a snake.

I think SSL is a better fit, actually. In theory TLS could be a transport-layer security mechanism that would let arbitrary protocols run on top of it (like IPSec does), but in practice it's pretty much tied up to TCP sockets. The UDP variant (DTLS, and I suppose QUIC) isn't part of the TLS spec for instance. Of course we have kernel TLS on Linux now, and Windows also has infrastructure like that, but it isn't as eas…

No? The "transport" layer is layer 4 in the 7-layer OSI model (physical/datalink/network/transport/session/presentation/application) and 5-layer IP model (physical/network/internetwork/transport/application). That is: the "transport" provides reliable continuous data-stream abstraction over the lower-layers' discreet and unreliable packets; e.g. TCP.

And that data-stream the interface that TLS provides; to the higher layers it looks like a transport layer.

Re: Why SSL was renamed to TLS in late 90s (2014)

#42

Post by firesteelrain »

jedberg wrote: post #27

Curious, when you tell someone they need to access a website securely (or any other case where you might use the term TLS or SSL), do you: 1. Say SSL or TLS? 2. How old are you (or did you start working before 1999?) I'll reply with my answer too.

I tell my developers to be compliant that they need to use TLS/SSL

Re: Why SSL was renamed to TLS in late 90s (2014)

#43

Post by Octoth0rpe »

jedberg wrote: post #27

Curious, when you tell someone they need to access a website securely (or any other case where you might use the term TLS or SSL), do you: 1. Say SSL or TLS? 2. How old are you (or did you start working before 1999?) I'll reply with my answer too.

1. SSL 2. Started working in 2000, right on the boundary

Re: Why SSL was renamed to TLS in late 90s (2014)

#44

Post by tptacek »

jedberg wrote: post #27

Curious, when you tell someone they need to access a website securely (or any other case where you might use the term TLS or SSL), do you: 1. Say SSL or TLS? 2. How old are you (or did you start working before 1999?) I'll reply with my answer too.

I say TLS, and started working in the field in 1994.

Re: Why SSL was renamed to TLS in late 90s (2014)

#45

Post by mindcrime »

jedberg wrote: post #27

Curious, when you tell someone they need to access a website securely (or any other case where you might use the term TLS or SSL), do you: 1. Say SSL or TLS? 2. How old are you (or did you start working before 1999?) I'll reply with my answer too.

These days I tend to say "TLS" more and more, but until just a year or two ago it was almost always "SSL". And "SSL" still slips out occasionally.

I'm 51, started working in IT in the mid 90's.

Re: Why SSL was renamed to TLS in late 90s (2014)

#46

Post by ThunderSizzle »

jedberg wrote: post #27

Curious, when you tell someone they need to access a website securely (or any other case where you might use the term TLS or SSL), do you: 1. Say SSL or TLS? 2. How old are you (or did you start working before 1999?) I'll reply with my answer too.

1. SSL (probably https in that specific scenario)

2. Graduated and started in 2015.

Re: Why SSL was renamed to TLS in late 90s (2014)

#47

Post by brandonmenc »

jedberg wrote: post #27

Curious, when you tell someone they need to access a website securely (or any other case where you might use the term TLS or SSL), do you: 1. Say SSL or TLS? 2. How old are you (or did you start working before 1999?) I'll reply with my answer too.

I say "https" because sometimes even regular people know what that means.

Re: Why SSL was renamed to TLS in late 90s (2014)

#48

Post by marginalia_nu »

jedberg wrote: post #27

Curious, when you tell someone they need to access a website securely (or any other case where you might use the term TLS or SSL), do you: 1. Say SSL or TLS? 2. How old are you (or did you start working before 1999?) I'll reply with my answer too.

1. SSL. For a long time I didn't even know TLS was the "same thing", but even now that I know it is, I still say SSL 9 times out of 10.

2. 38 - Started working in 2011, but my first forays into network programming was in something like 2004-2005.

Looked over onto my other screen and sure enough the function I'd literally minutes before added an if statement to went

        public Builder sslCertNotBefore(Instant sslCertNotBefore) {
            if (sslCertNotBefore.isAfter(MAX_UNIX_TIMESTAMP)) {
                sslCertNotBefore = MAX_UNIX_TIMESTAMP;
            }
            this.sslCertNotBefore = sslCertNotBefore;
            return this;
        }
I think possibly part of the problem is that we as programmers typically don't deal with TLS directly. The code above is part of a system I wrote that extracts detailed certificate information from HTTPS connections, and man was it ever a hassle to wrestle all the information I was interested in out of the java standard library.

Sure on the one hand it's easier to not mess up if it's all automatic and out of sight, but at the same time, it's not exactly beneficial to the spread of deeper awareness of how TLS actually works when it's always such a black box.

Re: Why SSL was renamed to TLS in late 90s (2014)

#49

Post by MOARDONGZPLZ »

0xbadcafebee wrote: post #40
MOARDONGZPLZ wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Right, but they accomplish the same thing and people move monotonically from SSL to TLS. It’s not like choosing between React and Angular, but like choosing between React version 5 and React version 10 for a new project. SSL and TLS are the same in all meaningful respects from this perspective.

Hotdogs and hamburgers are the same in all meaningful respects.

They are not. But a Chicago dog is meaningfully the same as a New York Dog (just with some more vegetables).

Re: Why SSL was renamed to TLS in late 90s (2014)

#50

Post by aniviacat »

jedberg wrote: post #27

Curious, when you tell someone they need to access a website securely (or any other case where you might use the term TLS or SSL), do you: 1. Say SSL or TLS? 2. How old are you (or did you start working before 1999?) I'll reply with my answer too.

1. TLS

2. Started working after 1999

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