Imagine that you want to send a message to a friend through the mail. To do this, you decide to write the message on a postcard and send it through the regular mail system.
Here is how this would compare to using Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) to send data over the internet:
- You write the message on the postcard and put it in an envelope. The message represents the data that you want to send over the internet.
- You address the envelope to your friend and put it in a mailbox. This is similar to how you access a website using HTTP by typing the website’s address into your web browser and hitting “enter”.
- The postcard is picked up by the mail carrier and delivered to your friend through the regular mail system. This is similar to how HTTP sends the data over the internet using the regular internet protocols.
- Your friend receives the postcard and reads the message. This is similar to how the client (such as a web browser) receives the data from the server and displays it to the user.
Using a postcard (HTTP) to send a message is similar to using an unsecured protocol to send data over the internet. Both methods allow the message (data) to be easily intercepted and read by third parties, such as the mail carrier (ISP) or anyone else who handles the postcard (data). This can compromise the privacy and security of the communication.
To protect the confidentiality of the message (data), you may want to consider using a secure mailing service (HTTPS) or a secure protocol, such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL).
Overall, using HTTP can potentially expose your internet activity to your ISP and other third parties, which can compromise your privacy. To protect your privacy online, you may want to consider using HTTPS or a secure protocol, such as Transport Layer Security (TLS) or Secure Sockets Layer (SSL), which encrypts the communication between the client and the server.