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Curious, when you tell someone they need to access a website securely (or any other case where you might use the term TLS or SSL), do you: 1. Say SSL or TLS?
by jedberg 1y ago
Curious, when you tell someone they need to access a website securely (or any other case where you might use the term TLS or SSL), do you:
1. Say SSL or TLS?
2. How old are you (or did you start working before 1999?)
I'll reply with my answer too.
- aniviacat 1y ago1. TLS 2. Started working after 1999
- jedberg 1y ago1. SSL 2. Started working before 1999
- curmudgeon22 1y agoSSL, started computer science in 2010
- jedberg 1y agoI was going to reply to you and tell you that you're too young to be a curmudgeon, but then I realized, no, I'm just old!
- gryfft 1y agoReflex is to say SSL but usually correct myself to TLS. Started in IT in 2006 (was a nerd a few years before that though)
- jozvolskyef 1y agoI second this, started around the same time.
- romanhn 1y agoExactly this for me as well. Started a few years earlier.
- Rendello 1y agoSSL, started programming in maybe 2012. Possibly because of HTTPS or similarity with SSH.
- amiga386 1y agoI say HTTPS certificate. If I need to specifically say SSL or TLS, it's SSL (as in OpenSSL, LibreSSL, BoringSSL, SSL certificates, Qualys SSL Labs, SSL Server Test). TLS is a made up name for SSL. I do say e.g. "TLSv1.2" if I need to name the specific protocol, that's about it. I was working before 1999.
- firesteelrain 1y agoI tell my developers to be compliant that they need to use TLS/SSL
- Octoth0rpe 1y ago1. SSL 2. Started working in 2000, right on the boundary
- tptacek 1y agoI say TLS, and started working in the field in 1994.
- mindcrime 1y agoThese days I tend to say "TLS" more and more, but until just a year or two ago it was almost always "SSL". And "SSL" still slips out occasionally. I'm 51, started working in IT in the mid 90's.
- ThunderSizzle 1y ago1. SSL (probably https in that specific scenario) 2. Graduated and started in 2015.
- brandonmenc 1y agoI say "https" because sometimes even regular people know what that means.
- frollogaston 1y agoAnd it's a bit more precise to say HTTPS if you're talking about HTTPS.
- marginalia_nu 1y ago1. SSL. For a long time I didn't even know TLS was the "same thing", but even now that I know it is, I still say SSL 9 times out of 10. 2. 38 - Started working in 2011, but my first forays into network programming was in something like 2004-2005. Looked over onto my other screen and sure enough the function I'd literally minutes before added an if statement to went public Builder sslCertNotBefore(Instant sslCertNotBefore) { if (sslCertNotBefore.isAfter(MAX_UNIX_TIMESTAMP)) { sslCertNotBefore = MAX_UNIX_TIMESTAMP; } this.sslCertNotBefore = sslCertNotBefore; return this; } I think possibly part of the problem is that we as programmers typically don't deal with TLS directly. The code above is part of a system I wrote that extracts detailed certificate information from HTTPS connections, and man was it ever a hassle to wrestle all the information I was interested in out of the java standard library. Sure on the one hand it's easier to not mess up if it's all automatic and out of sight, but at the same time, it's not exactly beneficial to the spread of deeper awareness of how TLS actually works when it's always such a black box.
- cesarb 1y agoI usually say SSL, because it has a greater chance of being understood than the more correct TLS (nobody uses SSL 3.0 anymore). It's also in the name of many SSL (I mean, TLS) libraries, like the classic OpenSSL. But yeah, I learned about SSL back in the crypto wars days of the 1990s, back when you had to pirate the so-called "US only" version of Netscape if you wanted decent SSL encryption, so I might be just using the old term out of habit.
- _def 1y agoThat's wild, where would you get that "US" netscape version from?
- amiga386 1y agoYou click the other button on the download page. https://web.archive.org/web/19990911233949/http://www73.netscape.com/download/index.html https://web.archive.org/web/19990911233949/http://www73.nets... The US had some strange ideas about cryptography: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars#PC_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto_Wars#PC_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_the_United_States#PC_era https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Export_of_cryptography_from_th... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_investigation https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pretty_Good_Privacy#Criminal_i...
- christophilus 1y agoSSL. Started working around 2000.
- kasey_junk 1y agoAlmost always ssl. Started professionally in 1999. But! mTLS is always mTLS
- itake 1y agoTLS. 1989. Even today, people and marketing pages promote "SSL" term. Unless you specifically google, "What is the deference between SSL and TLS?" most people would have no idea what TLS is.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- tesseract 1y ago(1) SSL (2) 37. I've been an Internet user since ~1995 and been working in tech since 2004.
- epc 1y ago1. SSL 2. 57
- zamadatix 1y ago1. Cloudflare could probably use my choice of the day as another source for their randomness. 2. Started my first IT job on a computer networking team in 2012.
- anal_reactor 1y agoI always say HTTPS because in the context of my area of speciality, the details of how HTTPS works don't matter and neither do secure communication protocols besides HTTPS.
- unethical_ban 1y agoNice try, targeted advertiser! Mid 30s, SSL. I work in cybersecurity and all the tools in the firewall/cert world still say "SSL decryption" and "SSL certificate". TLS is just a "major version" of SSL in my mind.
- sanswork 1y agoSSL 42-started studying security in mid 90s as a teen started working 2000
- theK 1y agoAh yes, it was a grand time, freeform studying IT security as a teen in the 90s!
- sanswork 1y agoMy mom bought me applied crypto when I was thirteen and I was really into trying to learn how to find exploits with idapro and learning to code in general. It wasn't really the other kind of Freeform studying lol I was terrified of the thought of prison.
- Bluecobra 1y agoIt’s probably a good thing I didn’t have the knowledge/skills I have now, it might have saved me from trouble. Back in those days I was more interested in getting Back Orfice to remotely open a CD-ROM tray on a friend’s computer. I remember when broadband was first being rolled out it seemed like everyone was hooking up their cable/DSL modems directly to their PC and having a public IP with no firewall. Good times.
- israrkhan 1y agoI think most people call it SSL because they use OpenSSL library to deal with secure communication have SSL in their names. Openssl being the most dominant one). Other libraries are BoringSSL, LibreSSL, wolfSSL etc. Libraries with TLS in their names are less frequently used GnuTLS, mbedTLS, s2n-tls and RustTLS.
- slt2021 1y agoSSL is used in websites. TlS is used in other applications, as in mTLS
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ItsHarper 1y agoTLS is absolutely used in websites, and I'm pretty sure modern browsers refuse to use any version of SSL.
- throwaway843 1y agoUnfortunately you were voted down for answering OP. SSL for websies, TLS for email, tunnels, XMPP, etc.
- ItsHarper 1y agoTLS is used for websites too.
- foresterre 1y agoThe Rust library is possibly funnily, possibly confusingly called RusTLS (1). It makes pronunciation a tad harder. (1) https://crates.io/crates/rustls https://crates.io/crates/rustls
- ctz 1y agoMy apologies.
- notpushkin 1y agoSSL, 27. I would call it `tls` in code, though (and maybe “SSL/TLS” in docs, for clarity).
- baobun 1y agoTLS: Rolls off the tounge easier. Feels nicer in mouth. Easier to slur smoothly. Flows better on keyboard. It's the ergonomic choice (;
- baobun 1y agoAside: I think this shared preference for efficiency/comfort/laziness is big part of why master -> main spread quickly while JavaScript -> ECMAScript never had a chance. I guess it follows that Twitter/X might never be able to pull off a rebrand again.
- MBCook 1y agoSSL, 40s
- justusthane 1y agoSSL. Working as a sysadmin since 2010. It just feels more right to me, and honestly, it hasn’t been until recently that I’ve noticed more of a concerted effort to rebrand it to TLS — not sure if that’s just my perception or not.
- mogwire 1y agoSSL - In my 40s, over 20 plus years. When do I say TLS, when that one annoying guy joins the call that always corrects you. Everyone hates him, and he doesn’t care.
- garbagepatch 1y agoTo users: https To devs: SSL Did not start working before 1999. Started using Linux in 2003.
- colmmacc 1y agoNobody ever says "TLS Certificate". It's only an "SSL Certificate". On that alone, it's just easier to stick to "SSL" for consistency and everyone knows what you mean.
- mr_mitm 1y agoThey should be saying X.509 certificate though. I think I say "server certificate" most of the time.
- frollogaston 1y agoSSL, born 1997
- mbreese 1y ago1) SSL, even though I know the difference. More accurately, I know there is a difference, but SSL gets the point across. 2) before 1999. IIRC, the first SSL certificate I was involved with getting required the use of a fax machine.
- invaliduser 1y ago1. I say both somewhat 50/50. I say SSL instinctively, and TLS when I think about it and remember we don't say SSL anymore. It's been like that for around 10 years now, before that I'd only say SSL. 2. I started programming professionally in 1998 and I'm in my early 50s.
- bravesoul2 1y agoTLS probably. 2004 I think the TLS v1.2 pushed me that way
- Bluecobra 1y ago1. SSL 2. I’m old enough to remember 56-bit SSL encryption in browsers
- cobbaut 1y ago1. SSL 2. I'm 56 and was active in computer clubs in the late 80s, no network, no hard drive, thousands of floppy's.
- __s 1y agoTLS (outside dealing with PG options named like sslmode) No
- -t0mm 1y ago1. TLS 2. 22. Started in 2024, but the SSL terminology is still widely used in the systems that I currently work with :p
- icedchai 1y agoSSL. Started working in the mid 90's.