What does SSL do for web applications

Does SSL provide any type of security other than simply encrypting the content of the HTTP request for we开发者_如何学JAVAb applications?

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SSL does 2 things:

• verifies that the site is who they say they are (to prevent man in the middle attacks)
• encrypts the traffic between the client and the server

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An addition to @cobbal, only organization-validated certificates validate who you really are. Almost 90% of the certificates in the market are domain-validated and they don't validate anything (that's why they are much cheaper).