Software developed by some researchers in South Korea and the United States could eventually herald the use of SSL proxies based on commodity hardware to protect transactions conducted with websites. As reported by Network World, the problem with enabling SSL/TLS protocols on a non-ecommerce webserver is that cryptographic computations encumber the server's CPUs with additional work, limiting their scalability. This might help explain why sites with heavy traffic have been reluctant to enable SSL by default. For example, social networking site Facebook announced the option of using Facebook over HTTPS only this week.

Called SSLShader, the software project uses an algorithm devised by the researchers to achieve maximum throughput by tapping the large number of cores in a modern GPU. Depending on the load type and volume, the CPU could also be used in order to minimize latency. What is telling, though, is test results which show an Intel (NASDAQ: INTC) Xeon X5550 CPU with four cores capable of handling a load of some 3,632 SSL transactions per second (TPS). In comparison, a Nvidia GTX 480 graphic card was able to achieve 18,482 TPS using the massive, parallel algorithm created by the team.

The researchers are scheduled to make a presentation at the eighth USENIX Symposium on Networked Design and Implementation in Boston, March 30 through April 1. You can also access the project page here.

For more on this story:
- check out this article at Network World

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