What happens when you type a web address and press Enter
HTTPS encryption: how two strangers agree on a secret key in public
Your phone and a website need one secret key to lock their talk. But every machine on the way can read the messages they send to agree on that key. In the end, they still share a secret.
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A lock needs one secret key at both ends: scrambling messages with it, so that only its holders can read them, is called encryption. But a key sent by your phone would be read by every router too.
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It looks impossible. Yet since 1976 there is a way: the two ends build the same key, and the key itself never travels.
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