http://online.wsj.com/article_print/0,4287,SB1014167284826456880,00.html
February 20, 2002 E-COMMERCE VeriSign's Blueprint Will Facilitate Online Authentication Developments By NICK WINGFIELD Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL VeriSign Inc. announced a new plan to act as a neutral party between rival factions in the market for online authentication services. The plan involves a technical blueprint, introduced Tuesday by Mountain View, Calif.-based VeriSign, that the company is pushing as a way to simplify the creation of sophisticated Web applications that require high-levels of security. A broad range of companies agreed to support VeriSign's technologies and specifications in their software programming tools and other products -- including two companies that have put forth competing proposals for online authentication services, Microsoft Corp. and Sun Microsystems Inc. Microsoft and Sun have been working separately to set technical ground rules that will allow users of personal computers and other devices to get access to Internet resources by logging on just once, rather than having to fumble with multiple passwords. Microsoft's Passport technology is already in use on sites across the Internet. Sun last year founded, along with more than two dozen companies, a consortium called the Liberty Alliance to create an alternative set of authentication specifications for Web sites, though the group hasn't produced a product for consumers to use. Some Liberty representatives have signaled an eagerness to get Microsoft to join the alliance, and Microsoft executives haven't ruled out that possibility. VeriSign, meanwhile, says it sees an opportunity to help broker personal information between competing online identity services by acting as a kind of independent hub for the various plans. The company's technologies and services will also make it easier for businesses to create applications that need to verify someone's identity. For instance, a health-care provider could make an application that verifies medical claims by checking a database of doctors, all of whose identities have been verified by VeriSign. In addition to Microsoft and Sun, International Business Machines Corp., Oracle Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co., BEA Systems Inc. and others also agreed to support the VeriSign framework in their products. "We'll be the underpinnings across all of them," said Anil Pereira, a senior vice president at VeriSign. Write to Nick Wingfield at [EMAIL PROTECTED] URL for this article: http://online.wsj.com/article/0,,SB1014167284826456880.djm,00.html Hyperlinks in this Article: (1) mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] Updated February 20, 2002 3:15 p.m. EST Copyright 2002 Dow Jones & Company, Inc. All Rights Reserved Printing, distribution, and use of this material is governed by your Subscription agreement and Copyright laws. For information about subscribing go to http://www.wsj.com -- ----------------- R. A. Hettinga <mailto: [EMAIL PROTECTED]> The Internet Bearer Underwriting Corporation <http://www.ibuc.com/> 44 Farquhar Street, Boston, MA 02131 USA "... however it may deserve respect for its usefulness and antiquity, [predicting the end of the world] has not been found agreeable to experience." -- Edward Gibbon, 'Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire' --------------------------------------------------------------------- The Cryptography Mailing List Unsubscribe by sending "unsubscribe cryptography" to [EMAIL PROTECTED]