TLS Session Resumption (Session IDs / Session Tickets)

After some experimentation, I concluded that Chrome does in fact use the session tickets to re-establish SSL connections.

Also, the session IDs the client uses when it reconnects are derived from the session ticket it receives.

Taken from the RFC:

3.4. Interaction with TLS Session ID

If a server is planning on issuing a session ticket to a client that does not present one, it SHOULD include an empty Session ID in the ServerHello. If the server rejects the ticket and falls back to the full handshake then it may include a non-empty Session ID to indicate its support for stateful session resumption. If the client receives a session ticket from the server, then it discards any Session ID that was sent in the ServerHello.

When presenting a ticket, the client MAY generate and include a Session ID in the TLS ClientHello. If the server accepts the ticket and the Session ID is not empty, then it MUST respond with the same Session ID present in the ClientHello. This allows the client to easily differentiate when the server is resuming a session from when it is falling back to a full handshake. Since the client generates a Session ID, the server MUST NOT rely upon the Session ID having a particular value when validating the ticket. If a ticket is presented by the client, the server MUST NOT attempt to use the Session ID in the ClientHello for stateful session resumption. Alternatively, the client MAY include an empty Session ID in the ClientHello. In this case, the client ignores the Session ID sent in the ServerHello and determines if the server is resuming a session by the subsequent handshake messages.