VeriSign, Inc. (NASDAQ: VRSN) is an American company based in Mountain View, California that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the generic top-level domains for .com and .net, one of the largest SS7 signaling networks in North America, and the RFID directory for EPCGlobal. VeriSign also provides a variety of security and telecom services ranging from digital certificates, payments processing, and managed firewalls to mobile call roaming, toll-free call database queries and downloadable digital content for mobile devices. The company groups all of these functions under the banner of 'intelligent infrastructure' services. Image File history File links VeriSign. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... NASDAQ in Times Square, New York City. ... Year 1995 (MCMXCV) was a common year starting on Sunday (link will display full 1995 Gregorian calendar). ... Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U.S. state of California. ... The term communications is used in a number of disciplines: Communications, also known as communication studies is the academic discipline which studies communication, generally seen as a mixture between media studies and linguistics. ... Look up revenue in Wiktionary, the free dictionary. ... ISO 4217 Code USD User(s) the United States, the British Indian Ocean Territory,[1] the British Virgin Islands, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Panama, Caicos Islands, and the insular areas of the United States Inflation 2. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays full 2006 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... Net income is equal to the income that a firm has after subtracting costs and expenses from the total revenue. ... ISO 4217 Code USD User(s) the United States, the British Indian Ocean Territory,[1] the British Virgin Islands, East Timor, Ecuador, El Salvador, the Marshall Islands, Micronesia, Palau, Panama, Caicos Islands, and the insular areas of the United States Inflation 2. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays full 2006 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... For the album by the Kaiser Chiefs see Employment (album) Employment is a contract between two parties, one being the employer and the other being the employee. ... A website (alternatively, Web site or web site) is a collection of Web pages, images, videos and other digital assets that is hosted on one or several Web server(s), usually accessible via the Internet, cell phone or a LAN. A Web page is a document, typically written in HTML... NASDAQ in Times Square, New York City. ... Mountain View is a city in Santa Clara County, in the U.S. state of California. ... The AMS-IX mirror of the K root-server. ... A top-level domain (TLD) is the last part of an Internet domain name; that is, the letters which follow the final dot of any domain name. ... For dot-com companies, see dot-com company. ... .net (network) generic top-level domain (gTLD) used on the Internets Domain Name System. ... Signalling System #7 is a set of protocols defined by ITU-T, specifically in the Q.7* set of documents, used to set up telephone calls. ... An EPC RFID tag used for Wal-Mart Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. ... EPCglobal is a joint venture between GS1 (formerly known as EAN International) and GS1 USâ„¢ (formerly the Uniform Code Council, Inc. ... In cryptography, a public key certificate (or identity certificate) is a certificate which uses a digital signature to bind together a public key with an identity — information such as a the name of a person or an organisation, their address, and so forth. ... Firewall separating zones of trust A firewall is a hardware or software device which is configured to permit, deny, or proxy data through a computer network which has different levels of trust. ... Roaming is a general term in wireless telecommunications that refers to the extending of connectivity service in a location that is different from the home location where the service was registered. ... A toll-free telephone number (or Freephone number in the UK) is a special telephone number, in which the calling party is not charged for the call by the telephone operator. ...

History

VeriSign was founded in 1995 as a spin-off of the RSA Security certification services business. The new company received licenses to key cryptographic patents held by RSA and a time limited non-compete agreement. The new company served as a certificate authority (CA) — a role it still fulfills — and its initial mission was "providing trust for the Internet and Electronic Commerce through our Digital Authentication services and products." VeriSign now has more than 3,000,000 certificates in operation for everything from military to financial services and retail applications, making it the largest CA behind the encryption and authentication on the Internet, which most people recognize as the small padlock icon in their Web browser when shopping online. VeriSign is well known for the VeriSign Secured Seal, which is an outward expression of a Web site's authentication and encryption commonly posted to VeriSign SSL Certificate customers' Web sites. RSA, The Security Division of EMC Corporation (NYSE: EMC), is headquartered in Bedford, Massachusetts, and maintains offices in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Singapore, and Japan. ... In cryptography, a certificate authority or certification authority (CA) is an entity which issues digital certificates for use by other parties. ... Electronic commerce, commonly known as e-commerce or eCommerce, consists of the buying and selling of products or services over electronic systems such as the Internet and other computer networks. ... “Cipher” redirects here. ... Authentication (from Greek αυθεντικός; real or genuine, from authentes; author) is the act of establishing or confirming something (or someone) as authentic, that is, that claims made by or about the thing are true. ... SSL can mean more than one thing: Secure Sockets Layer, a communications protocol. ...

The company held an Initial Public Offering on 1998-01-30 for US$14 a share. The pre-IPO investors included RSA Data Security Inc., Bessemer Ventures, Kleiner-Perkins, VISA International, Ameritech, Mitsubishi, Security Dynamics, and Fischer International. Along the way, VeriSign broadened its portfolio of "infrastructure services" by acquiring a number of additional businesses, including SecureIT in 1998 (from which it derived its Security Services division), Network Solutions in 2000 (from which it derived the domain name business, and later spun off the customer-facing 'registrar' component), Illuminet in 2001 (which marked the company's first foray into telecommunications), Guardent in 2003 (which improved its managed security offering), and Jamba! in 2004 (which is called Jamster! in English-speaking countries and consists of downloadable digital content for mobile phones). VeriSign made its presence in India by acquiring Unimobile in 2004. An initial public offering (IPO) is the first sale of a corporations common shares to investors on a public stock exchange. ... Year 1998 (MCMXCVIII) was a common year starting on Thursday (link will display full 1998 Gregorian calendar). ... is the 30th day of the year in the Gregorian calendar. ... Network Solutions, LLC.—a technology company founded in 1979—was the first registrar of domain names. ... Jamster! (known as Jamba! in Continental Europe) is a mobile phone content provider, and a wholly-owned subsidiary of VeriSign. ...

As of 2005, VeriSign takes in more than $1 billion in annual revenue ($1.66 billion for FY 2005) with more than 4000 employees worldwide. The business is divided into two large divisions: Internet Services and Communications Services. 2005 is a common year starting on Saturday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

Divisions

The Internet Services division includes Naming & Directory Services, which houses the domain name registry for .com and .net, as well as other DNS-related services, and RFID services; and Security Services, which spans a diverse set of capabilities. Security Services includes managed security services (firewalls, intrusion detection and prevention, vulnerability protection, phishing response, etc.), global security consulting (assessments, design, compliance, certification), email security (anti-spam, anti-virus), strong authentication (tokens and remote access validation), payment services (ecommerce transactions and fraud protection) as well as the original digital certificate/SSL business including the most recent Extended Validation (High Assurance) SSL Certificates. VeriSign claims to handle 14 billion domain name system (DNS) inquiries daily, 35% of North American e-commerce, and encryption for the "majority" of secure Web sites. An EPC RFID tag used for Wal-Mart Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) is an automatic identification method, relying on storing and remotely retrieving data using devices called RFID tags or transponders. ... Firewall separating zones of trust A firewall is a hardware or software device which is configured to permit, deny, or proxy data through a computer network which has different levels of trust. ... This phishing attempt, disguised as an official email from a (fictional) bank, attempts to trick the banks members into giving away their account information by confirming it at the phishers linked website. ... In cryptography, a public key certificate (or identity certificate) is a certificate which uses a digital signature to bind together a public key with an identity — information such as a the name of a person or an organisation, their address, and so forth. ... Introduction Extended Validation (aka High Assurance) SSL Certificates are a new type of SSL certificate and considered by some to be the biggest improvement in online trust infrastructure since 1995, when the original SSL standard and its implementation were created. ... It has been suggested that this article be split into multiple articles. ...

The Communications Services group acts as a service provider to the global telecommunications sector, with a similarly diverse set of capabilities. The division offers a variety of services for both wireline and wireless telcos, including pre-paid and post-paid billing; network interoperability for text messaging and call roaming; and the database and mediation services that power caller ID, local number portability (LNP), wireless LNP, VoIP, call routing, toll-free call directories, and more. VeriSign also offers a white-labeled retail wireless content portal which it operates directly to consumer under the Jamba! and Jamster! brands. The stats on VeriSign's communications network are also impressive: 2.7 billion phone call connections, 10 million caller IDs, and 3 million game, ringtone and picture downloads per day. It has been suggested that Mobile number portability be merged into this article or section. ... IP Telephony, also called Internet telephony, is the technology that makes it possible to have a telephone conversation over the Internet or a dedicated Internet Protocol (IP) network instead of dedicated voice transmission lines. ...

Controversies

In recent years, VeriSign has faced some public scrutiny regarding its relationship with ICANN (Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers) and DNS. In September 2003, VeriSign introduced a service called Site Finder, which redirected Web browsers to a search service when users attempted to go to nonexistent .com or .net domain names. ICANN asserted that VeriSign had overstepped the terms of its contract with the U. S. Department of Commerce, which in essence grants VeriSign the right to operate the DNS for .com and .net, and VeriSign shut down the service. Subsequently, VeriSign filed a lawsuit against ICANN in February 2004, seeking to gain clarity over what services it could offer in the context of ICANN's sometimes opaque governing process. The claim was moved from federal to California state court in August 2004 and is still pending.^[1] In late 2005 VeriSign and ICANN announced a proposed settlement which defines a process for the introduction of new registry services in the .com registry. The documents concerning these settlements are available here. The terms of this proposed settlement are themselves contentious, and have received widespread criticism. The ICANN comments mailing list archive documents some of these. Additionally VeriSign was involved in the sex.com matter decided by the Ninth circuit.^[2] ICANN headquarters ICANN (IPA /aɪkæn/) is the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers. ... Site Finder was a wildcard DNS record for all . ... The United States Department of Commerce is a Cabinet department of the United States government concerned with promoting economic growth. ... The Internet domain name sex. ...

In other negotiations with ICANN, VeriSign gave up operation of the .org top-level domain in 2003 in return for continued rights over .com, the largest domain with more than 34 million registered domain names. In mid-2005, the existing contract for the operation of .net expired and five companies, including VeriSign, bid for management of it. VeriSign's bid was backed by numerous IT and telecom heavyweights including Microsoft, IBM, Sun Microsystems, MCI and others, which all asserted that VeriSign had a perfect record operating .net. They proposed VeriSign continue to manage the .net DNS due to its critical importance as the domain underlying numerous "backbone" network services. On the 8th of June 2005 ICANN announced that VeriSign had been approved to operate .net until 2011. More information on the .net bidding process is available here.

Milestones

• Formed April 1995
• Netscape Server IDs ship June 1995
• Secure Email launched January 1996
• VeriSign Japan launched with NTT February 1996
• Code Signing launch with Microsoft March 1996
• US DOC approves Global ID to enable strong cryptographic software export June 1997
• SecureIT acquisition announced July 1998
• Managed PKI service version 4.0 October 1998
• Offers free Y2k testing certs November 1998
• Wireless PKI offering launched December 1999
• Thawte acquisition announced December 1999
• Signio acquisition announced February 2000
• Network Solutions acquired June 2000
• GreatDomains.com acquired October 2000
• Acquired eNIC Corporation and the .CC registry for the Cocos (Keeling) Islands from Brian Cartmell on August 31, 2001
• Illuminet acquired December 2001
• HO Systems acquisition February 2002
• Network Solutions registrar sold November 2003
• Guardent acquisition announced December 2003
• Acquired Unimobile in March 2004
• Jamba! acquired June 2004
• LightSurf acquisition announced January 2005
• R4 Global Solutions acquisition announced May 2005
• Lightbridge PrePay acquisition completed June 2005
• iDefense acquisition announced July 2005
• Moreover Technologies acquisition announced October 2005
• Weblogs.com acquisition announced October 2005
• Acquisition of VeriSign's Payment Gateway assets by eBay(Paypal) announced October 2005
• Kontiki acquisition announced March 2006
• VeriSign To Acquire GeoTrust Announcement May 2006 ^[3]
• VeriSign Introduces Extended Validation SSL Certificates in December 2006

Thawte Consulting is a certificate authority (CA) for X.509 certificates. ... Network Solutions, LLC.—a technology company founded in 1979—was the first registrar of domain names. ... For other uses, see Jamba. ... Year 2004 (MMIV) was a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2005 (MMV) was a common year starting on Saturday (link displays full calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... The Kon-Tiki raft is shown on the cover of the DVD of the documentary. ... VeriSign, Inc. ... Extended Validation Certificates (EV) [1] are a special type of X.509 certificate which require more extensive investigation by the Certificate Authority before being issued. ...

DNS control

VeriSign has a very important place in the Internet's DNS infrastructure. VeriSign is the authoritative registry operator for two of the most important top-level domains, .com and .net. It is also the authoritative registry operator for the country code top-level domains .cc (Cocos Islands) and .tv (Tuvalu). In addition, VeriSign runs the DNS servers for .edu, .name, and .jobs for their respective registry operators which are non-profit organizations, however they do not have any say in the operation of these domains. VeriSign also runs two of the Internet's root nameservers, A and J. It is the only root server operator that runs more than one server. The J root is anycasted. The A root is located in one of their main datacenters located in their regional headquarters in the Lakeside office complex in Dulles, Virginia. Routing Schemes anycast broadcast multicast unicast Anycast is a network addressing and routing scheme whereby data is routed to the nearest or best destination as viewed by the routing topology. ... Dulles is an unincorporated area in Loudoun County, Virginia. ...

References

Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... March 26 is the 85th day of the year (86th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2003 (MMIII) was a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 206th day of the year (207th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2006 (MMVI) was a common year starting on Sunday (link displays full 2006 calendar) of the Gregorian calendar. ... is the 137th day of the year (138th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ... Year 2007 (MMVII) is the current year, a common year starting on Monday of the Gregorian calendar and the AD/CE era. ... is the 233rd day of the year (234th in leap years) in the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• VeriSign web site
• Thawte web site - a VeriSign subsidiary
• Yahoo! - VeriSign, Inc. Company Profile
• VeriSign UK web site
• Most recent VeriSign quarterly conference call transcript
• SSL Information Center
• Extended Validation SSL Certificates FAQ
• VeriSign Domain Report - Quarterly analysis of global domain name market
• Commentary on VeriSign's .com/.net Registry
• Washington Post (27.02.2004): Suit Challenges Powers of Key Internet Authority
• Washington Post (19.01.2005): Firms Bid to Control .net Addresses
• Washington Post (28.03.2005): VeriSign Maintains Hold on .net Domain