"Strongly-encrypted channel" basically means VPN in my book. If the phpMyAdmin server isn't on a publicly-routable IP, and you don't have the VPN tunnel open wh

"Strongly-encrypted channel" basically means VPN in my book. If the phpMyAdmin server isn't on a publicly-routable IP, and you don't have the VPN tunnel open when you aren't using the secure host, then it will in fact defeat CSRF.