3. Goals of This Document

This document and the TLS protocol itself are based on the SSL 3.0 Protocol Specification as published by Netscape. The differences between this protocol and SSL 3.0 are not dramatic, but they are significant enough that the various versions of TLS and SSL 3.0 do not interoperate (although each protocol incorporates a mechanism by which an implementation can back down to prior versions). This document is intended primarily for readers who will be implementing the protocol and for those doing cryptographic analysis of it. The specification has been written with this in mind, and it is intended to reflect the needs of those two groups. For that reason, many of the algorithm-dependent data structures and rules are included in the body text (rather than in an appendix), providing easier access to them.

This document is not intended to supply any details of service definition or of interface definition, although it does cover select areas of policy as they are required for the maintenance of solid security.

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