I feel that both answers are basically saying the same thing with the exception of that pesky
word "secure" on the second description.
First off, I hate describing anything as "secure" since the word has different meanings for different people.
Secondly, I think security has nothing to do with the concept of an off-board server. It surely might be "secure" but that is not a required characteristic.
Lastly, the second description just provides a possible implementation for an off-board server. I don't think the author intended it to mean ALL off-board servers must use SSL and serial communications. SSL is just one example of an industry-standard protocol to talk with off-board servers and serial communications is just one example of a custom protocol for legacy communication. He could have including many other example as well.