Understanding the logistics of SSL is unrelated to understanding how identity claims can be represented and exchanged...

With the latest CardSpace bits anyone who is handy with HTML and PHP, Ruby, C#, Python or almost any other language can set up CardSpace on their site in minutes - without the pain and expense of installing a certificate. They can do this without using any of the special libraries necessary to support high security Information Card exchanges. This approach is only advisable [...]

In the simplest case, you can just look at the identity payload as an XML blob posted to a web site

Here are the claims you can request when dealing with CardSpace self-issued cards

How to tweak a web page so it lets you log in with an information card