1. The Secure Shell, or SSH, provides a way of running command line and graphical applications, and transferring files, over an encrypted connection, all that will be seen is junk. It is both a protocol and a suite of small command line applications, which can be used for various functions. SSH replaces the old Telnet application, and can be used for secure remote administration of machines across the Internet. However, it also has other features. SSH increases the ease of running applications remotely by setting up X permissions automatically. If you can log into a machine, it allows you to run a graphical application on it, unlikt Telnet, which requires users to have an understanding of the X authentication mechanisms that are manipulated through the xauth and xhost commands. SSH also has inbuilt compression, which allows your graphic applications to run much faster over the network. SCP (Secure Copy) and SFTP (Secure FTP) allow transfer of files over the remote link, either via SSH's own command line utilities or graphical tools like Gnome's GFTP. Like Telnet, SSH is cross-platform. You can find SSH server and clients for Linux, Unix and all flavours of Windows, BeOS, PalmOS, Java and embedded Oses used in routers. From Advanced Linux Pocketbook

2. A standard for cryptographic connections over a TCP connection. From Linux Guide @FirstLinux

3. Secure rlogin/rsh/rcp replacement (OpenSSH) This is the portable version of OpenSSH, a free implementation of the Secure Shell protocol as specified by the IETF secsh working group. Ssh (Secure Shell) is a program for logging into a remote machine and for executing commands on a remote machine. It provides secure encrypted communications between two untrusted hosts over an insecure network. X11 connections and arbitrary TCP/IP ports can also be forwarded over the secure channel. It is intended as a replacement for rlogin, rsh and rcp, and can be used to provide applications with a secure communication channel. In some countries, particularly Iraq, and Pakistan, it may be illegal to use any encryption at all without a special permit. From Debian 3.0r0 APT