Web Security, Privacy & Commerce, 2nd Edition

A Tour of the VeriSign Digital ID Center

VeriSign opened its Digital ID Center during the summer of 1996. Today VeriSign is the oldest and largest of the world’s certification authorities. VeriSign sells certificates for personal use, servers, and code signing. The center is located at http://digitalid.verisign.com/. Its home page is shown in Figure 21-2.

Figure 21-2. The home page for VeriSign’s Digital ID Center

Generating a VeriSign Digital ID

VeriSign distributes digital certificates (called digital IDs by VeriSign) from its web site. These certificates are standard X.509 v3 public key certificates and can be used with a wide variety of programs, as shown in Table 21-1

Table 21-1. Some programs that can use client certificates

Program	Purpose
Lotus Notes and Domino Server	Email encryption and digital certification; verify the identity of web users.
Microsoft Internet Explorer	Verifying the identity of a person browsing a web site.
Microsoft Outlook and Outlook Express	Emailing encryption and digital certification.
Netscape Navigator	Email encryption and digital certification; verify the identity of a person browsing a web site.

1. You decide if you wish to purchase a single Class 1 digital ID or if you wish to try a “Free 60-day trial edition” digital ID. VeriSign used to offer Class 1 certificates in “bulk” for distribution within an enterprise, but when this book went to press it appeared ...