http vs. https

[FriendInNeed]

I know that https is just a secure version of http, but what about https is so secure?

[ray326]

The content is encrypted using a public key encryption technique.

[felgall]

All content passed back to the server from an http: page is plain text readable by anyone who has access.

All content passed back to the server from an https: page is only able to be decrypted by the server that has the security certificate that was used to encrypt it in the first place.