We have made it safer to use your credit card on our site than it is to use it in more traditional ways, such as in retail stores or restaurants. SSL is the industry standard security protocol to encode sensitive information, such as your credit card number. SSL creates a shared digital key which only lets the sender and the receiver of the transmission scramble or unscramble information. To everyone else, even the servers relaying the message, the SSL transmission is indecipherable. SSL encryption can only be broken by intercepting the encrypted message, recording it, and using a computer to try every possible combination until the key is cracked.
Encryption is based on the mathematical scrambling and unscrambling of messages.
When you send us a message, you use our public key to encrypt your message. Once we receive your encrypted message, we use the private key to decode it. The same key cannot both encrypt and decrypt information. So, information encrypted using the private key can only be decrypted using the public key, and vice versa- ensuring the security of your information. I've heard a lot about Secure Sites.