Your security is assured!
Credit card security is one of our top priorities and that is why
we guarantee 100% secure ordering for all of our visitors. To protect
you and your credit card information, we use Secure Sockets Layer
(SSL) technology, which is the industry standard and among the best
software available today for secure commerce transactions. A complete
primer on SSL is provided below for your convenience.
An SSL Primer
To protect your information and the integrity of ours, we use an
industry-standard security protocol called Secure Sockets Layer
(SSL). Use of this technology encrypts any and all sensitive information
communicated between you and our web site.
When Netscape introduced SSL (secure-sockets layer) in 1995, it
paved the way for online information security. SSL is essentially
an encryption technology that scrambles a message so that only the
intended recipient can read it. Web addresses that begin with "https://"
are using SSL to protect information (think of the "s"
as meaning "secure"). To anyone without the "key",
any intercepted information would only read as useless gibberish.
To get SSL working, you need a digital ID (also known as an authentication
certificate) from a trusted third-party source. This certificate
is like an online passport or driver's license. It's essentially
a form of identification that confirms that you are who you say
you are, and that we are who we say we are.
Encryption is essentially a secret code that prevents others from
reading your messages. The elements of an encryption system are
the plaintext, the cryptographic algorithm, the key, and the ciphertext.
The plaintext is the actual message or data that is to be encrypted.
The cryptographic algorithm is a mathematical set of rules that
defines how the plaintext is to be combined with a key. The key
is a string of digits, and the ciphertext is the resulting encrypted
message.
These terms are probably best illustrated with a very simple example.
If you take the phrase "Fitness" and add 3 characters
to each letter, the phrase becomes "Ilwqhvv".
In this situation:
- "Fitness" is the plaintext
- "add 3 characters to each letter" is the cryptographic
algorithm
- "3" is the key
- "Ilwqhvv" is the ciphertext.
Here in detail are the steps taken during an SSL transaction:
1. You send our server a request for documents to be transmitted
using the "https://" protocol.
2. Our server sends its certificate to your computer.
3. Your computer then checks to see if the certificate is verified
by a trusted source.
4. Your computer compares the information in the certificate with
the information it received (the domain name and key). If this information
is a match, your computer accepts our site as authenticated.
5. Your computer tells our server what ciphers (encryption algorithms)
it can communicate with.
6. Our server chooses the strongest common cipher and informs your
computer of its choice.
7. Your computer generates a key using the agreed upon cipher.
8. Your computer then encrypts the key and sends it back to our
server.
9. Our server receives the encrypted key and decrypts it.
10. Your computer and our server then use the key for the life of
the transaction.
As you can probably tell from the above example, securing information
through SSL takes time. Therefore, you may notice that pages don't
load as quickly as they would without the security. But in the interest
of safety, this delay is worth the few extra seconds.
For your safety and convenience, we only operate over a secure
connection from the time you want to "check out" to the
time your order is confirmed.
SSL does come with a catch. Even though our web server fully supports
SSL, it will only work with SSL-friendly browsers. While most browsers
do support SSL, some archaic versions do not. If you receive an
error when trying to access the secure portion of our site, please
contact us for information on how to best place a safe order.
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