I agree with @lagopixel here, I don't think this is a network error.
First, if you want to use RPC commands with the bitcoin core you should add the "server" option (-server on command line or server=1 in bitcoin.conf).
Then, I'm pretty sure this has nothing to do with SSL conections but here are the options related to SSL for the bitcoin core (just in case):
- rpcssl: Use OpenSSL (https) for JSON-RPC connections
- rpcsslcertificatechainfile=file.cert: Server certificate file (default: server.cert)
- rpcsslprivatekeyfile=file.pem: Server private key (default:server.pem)
- rpcsslciphers=ciphers: Acceptable ciphers (default: TLSv1.2+HIGH:TLSv1+HIGH:!SSLv2:!aNULL:!eNULL:!3DES:@STRENGTH)
Moreover, note that using JSON-RPC over SSL is strongly discouraged.