Which of the following is the difference between SSL and S-HTTP?

SSL does not operate at the application layer - it functions at the transport layer to provide a generic secure channel that sits beneath application protocols.

Although S-HTTP is correctly placed at the application layer in this option, SSL does not operate at the application layer - it operates at the transport layer, not alongside HTTP.

SSL does not operate at the network layer - it sits between the transport and application layers, and S-HTTP belongs at the application layer, making the layer assignments in this option reversed.

SSL (Secure Sockets Layer) operates at the transport layer, creating an encrypted tunnel between client and server that any application-layer protocol can use, independent of the message content. S-HTTP (Secure Hypertext Transfer Protocol) operates at the application layer and secures HTTP transactions individually - it encrypts and signs specific messages rather than the entire connection, making the two protocols architecturally distinct in their OSI layer placement.