14 DAY TRIAL // For many developers, the hassle from working with SSL can be replaced with a simple JavaScript library called JCryption. Released on August 2, 2009 by Austrian developer Daniel Griesser with collaborations from the jQuery Development Team and Andrew Shapiro from JS-Library, it boasts being a real easy and fast solution for data encryption.
The library takes all the data sent through the classic POST and GET methods and, using a very powerful encryption process, applies an encryption key to secure data sent via a web form. The data is decrypted at the PHP server, resulting in a secure connection without using SSL along the way.
JCryption is built on top of the Multiple-Precision library and uses Barrett Modular Reduction library as well. The private keys are generated using the RSA algorithm inside the RSA library, supporting up to 2048 bit encryption keys.
While the private key is being stored inside the server session, a different keypair will automatically be generated every time data is sent by the user. Using this technique, the developer adds an extra layer of security to the data sent from a classic HTML form.
Problems may appear when JavaScript is turned off on the client side. This will lead to data being sent in clear text. File uploads also are not encrypted because there isn't a viable fast way of accessing data inside a file. Using the present-day tools, accessing data inside a file and applying the encryption will slow down the process to much.
Compared to SSL, JCryption offers a reliable encryption method, much faster to implement, but which can't supply a way of authenticating clients like SSL. More details can be found on the official product page.