Get my system design playbook for FREE on newsletter signup:
This post outlines how HTTPS works. You will find references at the bottom of this page if you want to go deeper.
Share this post & I'll send you some rewards for the referrals.
Once upon a time, the internet was a quiet place with only a tiny number of servers.
And the users communicated with servers by sending and receiving files.
They shared files through File Transfer Protocol (FTP), email attachments, and floppy disks.
Yet it became difficult to transfer information in a simple and standardized way.
So they created the Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP).
Think of HTTP as a set of rules for transferring information on the Internet.
Although it temporarily solved the data transfer problem, there were new issues.
Here are some of them:
1. Privacy and Integrity
HTTP sends data in plaintext without encryption.
It means someone on the public network can easily access or change the information.
So it’s insecure.
2. Authentication
HTTP doesn’t support a mechanism to check if the server is the right one.
It means someone else could pretend to be the server and steal the user's data.
So it became difficult to transfer sensitive information, such as passwords or credit card numbers.
Onward.
Ship faster, with context-aware AI that speaks your language - Sponsor
Augment Code is the only AI coding agent built for real engineering teams.
It understands your codebase—across 10M+ lines, 10k+ files, and every repo in your stack—so it can actually help: writing functions, fixing CI issues, triaging incidents, and reviewing PRs.
All from your IDE or terminal. No vibes. Just progress.
How Does HTTPS Work
Let’s dive in!