How would i use an SSL certificate?

[dvrman123]

hello all! i have only recently heard of SSL, and i heard it was a good way to "hide activity". im a big security freak...but i heard it only worked on Domains, or servers. i would like an SSL certificate, so my college network cannot track anything i do (this was advised BY their tech support...nothing illegal). any recomendations for sites? im dual booting ubuntu linux, and XP on one computer, and Vista and Ubuntu on the other. i need something that will be secure, and just plug/login to settings and go. any suggestions?
alright well if SSL isnt the way to go, how else can i tunnel or have an encrypted connection?

[CarlSunshine]

an SSL cert does not hide your activity like that. What it does is when sending requests to the web server it encrypts the data during transfer so that if someone does get a hold of it it cannot be decrypted very easily. so it does not work like you want it to.

I am not sure what exactly you are trying to "track what you are doing" The problem is that you are sending requests through their server so they are going to have a pretty good idea of what they are doing.