Summary

Depending on the information a client program exchanges with a web service, there will be times when you will need to protect the data from interception by a hacker. For example, if you create a web service that requires username and password data or credit-card information, you will want to protect the data from prying eyes as the data makes its way across the Internet.

In this chapter, you examined how websites use the secure sockets layer (SSL) to encrypt the messages a browser exchanges with a website. By taking a closer look at the behind-the-scenes processing that public-key encryption requires, you learned why users that use an https:// secure connection to a website do not require their own public key. Then, you learned that creating a secure connection to a web service was as easy as using the https:// prefix when you specify the web service’s WSDL entries. You also learned how to include code within your web service that lets the server determine whether or not the client program is connecting to the service using a secure connection so that the web service can continue its processing accordingly.