How deeply does Real-World Cryptography cover TLS handshake?

Explains the handshake’s major functions and certificate flow, while stopping short of complete message-level implementation detail.

TLS handshake

As explained in Real-World Cryptography

A TLS protocol phase in which peers negotiate parameters, establish keying material, authenticate participants, and derive session keys.

The TLS handshake is the setup phase before protected transport. It helps client and server find compatible settings, exchange keying material, authenticate identities, and establish session keys. section 9.2.1

A handshake combines four jobs:

Negotiation selects a mutually supported protocol version and cryptographic algorithms. section 9.2.1
Key exchange establishes shared keying material between the peers. section 9.2.1
Authentication prevents a man-in-the-middle attacker from impersonating a peer, using certificate chains and browser trust. section 9.2.1
Session resumption can fast-track later secure connections without repeating the full key exchange. section 9.2.1

Checking a website identity

A browser can inspect a server certificate chain: a website leaf certificate links through intermediate certificates to a root CA trusted in the browser’s trust store.

How Real-World Cryptography covers it

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Related concepts

TLSpart of · Transport Layer Security (TLS) is a cryptographic protocol that protects network communications through confidentiality, integrity, and authentication of communicating endpoints.
mutual TLSincludes · Mutual TLS is a Transport Layer Security configuration in which both communicating endpoints authenticate each other using digital certificates.
downgrade attackused by · A downgrade attack induces communicating systems to use an older or weaker protocol version, cryptographic algorithm, or security option than they support.
API keyproduces · An API key is a credential used to identify or authorize a client accessing an application programming interface.

This explainer was generated by Manning's knowledge graph from the text of Real-World Cryptography. The section links point to the parts of the book it draws on.