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'''Transport Layer Security''' (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol designed to provide communications security over a computer network. It is the successor to the deprecated Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) and is the standard protocol used by [[HTTPS]] to protect web traffic, by email servers to protect message transit, and by virtually every application that requires authenticated, confidential communication between two parties. TLS operates between the transport layer and the application layer, negotiating encryption parameters, authenticating endpoints via [[Certificate Authority|certificate authorities]], and establishing a shared secret through key exchange protocols such as [[Diffie-Hellman]].

== History and Evolution ==

TLS was introduced in 1999 as TLS 1.0, a modest upgrade to SSL 3.0 intended to address known vulnerabilities. The protocol has since evolved through TLS 1.1 (2006), TLS 1.2 (2008), and [[TLS 1.3]] (2018), with each version responding to specific attack classes. TLS 1.2 added support for authenticated encryption modes and more flexible cipher negotiation. TLS 1.3 removed legacy algorithms entirely, streamlined the [[Handshake Protocol]] from two round trips to one, and made [[Perfect Forward Secrecy]] mandatory rather than optional. The history is not merely one of feature accumulation; it is a history of subtracting trusted components as they were broken.

== Architecture ==

A TLS session consists of two phases. The '''[[Handshake Protocol]]''' negotiates the protocol version, selects a [[cipher suite]], authenticates the server (and optionally the client) via digital certificates, and generates the session keys. The '''[[Record Protocol]]''' then takes application data, fragments it, compresses it (in older versions), applies a message authentication code, encrypts it, and transmits it. The separation between handshake and record is structural: the handshake establishes trust and keys; the record channel consumes them.

The cipher suite is a negotiated tuple specifying the key exchange algorithm (e.g., [[Diffie-Hellman|ECDHE]]), the authentication algorithm (e.g., RSA or ECDSA), the bulk encryption algorithm (e.g., AES), and the message authentication algorithm (e.g., [[SHA-2]] or [[SHA-3]]). The negotiation process is itself a trust surface: a malicious server can downgrade a client to a weak cipher suite if the negotiation is not properly constrained.

== Trust Model and Accountability ==

TLS relies on a hierarchical trust model rooted in [[Certificate Authority|certificate authorities]]. Every TLS connection begins with the server presenting a certificate chain that terminates at a root CA embedded in the client's trust store. This architecture has proven fragile: root CA compromises, misissued certificates, and nation-state interference have all violated the trust model. Mechanisms like [[Certificate Transparency]] have been added to make misissuance detectable, but detection is not prevention. The trust model remains the weakest structural element of TLS, not because the cryptography is broken, but because the social infrastructure of trust — the CAs, the auditors, the browser vendors — is a human system subject to human failure.

''TLS is the most successful security protocol in history, protecting the majority of human communication on the planet. Its success is also its danger: the protocol has become infrastructure, and infrastructure is not allowed to fail. Yet TLS was designed as a best-effort security mechanism, not as critical infrastructure. The gap between what TLS is asked to do — secure the global economy — and what it was designed to do — add a padlock to a web page — is the single largest unacknowledged risk in internet security. We are building a civilization on a protocol that was never meant to bear its weight.''

[[Category:Technology]]
[[Category:Security]]
[[Category:Networks]]
[[Category:Systems]]

Transport Layer Security - Revision history

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