Here
at Wally's Delicatessen, we want you to enjoy your online shopping
experience confident in the knowledge that your personal information
and credit card details will be transmitted safely using the
most powerful security systems commercially available.
These
notes are designed to inform you how you can tell whether the
website requesting your personal and financial details is secure!
Websites
usually use a secure connection when they ask you to send personal
information online. Personal information such as telephone numbers
and credit card numbers should always be sent on a secure connection.
But how do you know if the connection is really secure? Because
they told you so, right? Wrong! Not everyone tells the truth.
You
web browser on the other hand, does not lie and will indicate
to you whether the connection is secure or not. Both Internet
Explorer and Netscape Navigator have similar methods of indicating
a secure connection. Where are the indicators? When a site is
secure, both Explorer and Netscape will display a closed Padlock
in the status bar. The status bar is at the very bottom of your
web browser. (See the padlocks in the images below.)
Internet
Explorer Status Bar (Secure Connection)
Netscape
Status Bar (Secure Connection)
With
Internet Explorer, if the connection is not secure, then the padlock
is not displayed. Netscape on the other hand displays an opened
padlock.
Internet
Explorer Status Bar (Normal Connection)
Netscape
Status Bar (Normal Connection)
Quick
tip
Another
sure way to check if the site's connection is secure is by looking
at their web address. It MUST start with "https://"
instead of the usual "http:". The "S"
after "http" signifies that the connection is secure.
What
is 128 Bit Encryption?
As
you know, any information you give whilst on the secure pages
of the Wallys's Delicatessen website is protected by 128 Bit
Encryption. But what Is 128-Bit Encryption, and how does it
work?
Encryption
is a sophisticated scrambling method that is designed to prevent
unauthorized eavesdropping on electronic data. Encryption works
by taking a piece of information and processing it with a mathematical
formula (called an "algorithm") that converts the information
into a meaningless string of letters and numbers. For example,
the sentence "This is a secret," when encrypted may look like
"as03xx1a79x!dqt." This encrypted string of information can
be sent over the Internet with the likelihood that anyone intercepting
the message will not be able to understand it. When the string
does reach its intended destination, a similar mathematical
formula is applied to the string to decrypt it. 128-bit encryption
refers to the size of the key used to encrypt the message. A
longer key means the encryption is more "random," and someone
attempting to decipher the message will have to try more combinations
of keys. Each extra bit in a key doubles the complexity of the
key.
Based
on the past history of improvements in computer performance,
security experts expect that 128-bit encryption will work well
on the Internet for at least the next ten years.
View
a Test Page
If
you would like to view a Live Test Page with a secure 128 Bit
encrypted connection, please click
here!
