VeriSign Live

RSA and VeriSign team up on Cloud-based, Two-Factor Authentication offering

2009-10-08T17:11:01Z

Today, we are pleased to announce that our customers' options have been broadened by our technical and sales partnership with RSA, another "Best-in-Class" Authentication Provider. The agreement will provide organizations with the mutual benefit of an expanded VIP Authentication Service through the availability of RSA SecurID® two-factor authentication technology for more choice in one-time password (OTP) authentication.

Organizations in search of strong authentication solutions will benefit from being able to use VIP in combination with RSA SecurID hardware tokens and the convenience of a single platform.

This technical and sales partnership between RSA and VeriSign signals a new chapter in the longstanding relationship between RSA and VeriSign, both of whom were recently rated Best-in-Class for Multi-Channel Authentication Technology by Javelin Strategy & Research, are teaming up to address the market segment for managed, shared authentication services, offering organizations the convenience of a single platform. Read the press release.

Updated on October 9:
Read what Burton Group's Senior Analyst Mark Diodati has to say about our partnership with RSA.

Meet Matt Larson, Part Three: VeriSign's role in the .com and .net root zones

2009-07-19T23:03:02Z

VeriSign's Role in the .com and .net Root Zones

Here is some more information from Matt Larson, VeriSign's DNS expert.

"VeriSign operates some of the most critical zones in the DNS. We operate the .com zone. that has approx. 80 million names, which makes it by far the largest zone in the Namespace by a factor of 7 or 8, so it's huge. One of our challenges is keeping that huge zone up and and shipping 80 million names around the world and keeping them up to date within a few seconds is a huge challenge for us. We also run the .net zone, which is much smaller than .com but is still a very large zone with 7 or 8 million names so it is also quite large."

"We also have a role in administering the root zone. The root zone is at the top of the name space, and it delegates to the vaious top level domain zones, or which there are approximately 280. People are most familiar with the "Generic Top Level Domain Names" like .com, .net, and .org. But every country in the world has it's own 'Country Code Top Level Domain' (or ccTLD.) So the root zone is relatively small, but it's extremely important because it's where you start when you want to look things up. We've been in partnership with ICANN, and Department of Commerce for many years to create the root zone, make changes happen, and publish it."

Want to hear more from Matt? Listen to his extremely informative (and rather entertaining) podcast "Ask Mr. DNS" that he records with his friend and co-DNS expert, Cricket Liu. You'll discover amazing things, like why Matt has 600 pipes in his living room (episode 2.)

Meet Matt Larson, Part Two

2009-06-08T22:57:13Z

The Difference between a Domain and a Zone

The term "domain" relates to the structure of the Namespace tree. But when you refer to a "zone," you need to know where the administrative boundaries are. You must know who delegates to whom and where they do that delegation. The entire Namespace is huge, and no single organization operates all of it. It must be sliced up into administrative boundaries so that different organizations can run different portions. So, a zone describes how the namespace is divided up for administrative purposes. The .com domain includes .com and everything below, but the .com zone does not include information below it. For example, the IP address of blogs.verisign.com is not in the .com zone.

Zones represent administrative boundaries that are created by delegation. Higher levels of the Namespace delegate authority to lower levels. For example, the root zone delegates authority to the .com zone which delegates authority to the 80 million names beneath it. The IP addresses hang off of the nodes of each domain name, and this information is not in the .com zone.

Want to hear more from Matt? Listen to his extremely informative (and rather entertaining) podcast "Ask Mr. DNS" that he records with his friend and co-DNS expert, Cricket Liu.

Meet Matt Larson, DNS Expert

2009-06-01T20:24:36Z

The first interview on VeriSign Live is with Matt Larson, Vice President of DNS research. I met Matt when I joined VeriSign as a Web producer in 2002. My first assignment was to re-brand the Acme Byte & Wire site (Matt’s company) as one of VeriSign’s acquisitions. Matt was extremely cordial about the situation, he understood why his brand needed to be assimilated into the “collective.” But he seemed crestfallen when it came time to bid farewell to the jaunty green and white “Ask Mr. DNS” Logo. I was new to the world of Corporate Branding, so I felt quite awkward about what had to be done. It made for some uncomfortable moments for me on elevator rides to the fourth floor, where we both sit.

Matt explained some of the important terms and concepts around the Domain Name System, or the DNS. Matt described the DNS as a “massive distributed database” whose main purpose is to map domain names (names of computers), to IP addresses, which are the network addresses for Internet servers.

“People can remember names a lot easier than they can remember IP addresses, and the guts of the Internet routers, switches and things need IP addresses in order to route traffic, but it’s easier for people to remember Domain Names than IP addresses. So the DNS performs this critical function.”

Want to hear more from Matt? Listen to his extremely informative (and rather entertaining) podcast “Ask Mr. DNS” that he records with his friend and co-DNS expert, Cricket Liu.

]]> The Domain Name System
The DNS is a massive, globally distributed database. The structure of the database is called the Namespace. Matt drew a small version of the Namespace on his whiteboard as an inverted tree, where the root node is at the top and the branches grow downward. He called this a “computer scientist tree,” noting that “computer scientists love inverted trees.” All nodes’ positions are identified in relation to the root node, so you have “top level,” “second level” and so on. Nodes have labels and are identified in relation to each other, as a family so nodes will have a “parent / child” relationship. (I wonder if they argue about curfews?). VeriSign facilitates changes to the root zone.

Critical DNS Terms: Domain Names, IP Addresses and Domains
A domain name is the sequence of labels from a particular node up towards the root. We construct the domain name by starting at the bottom of the tree (for example, www.verisign.com). The main purpose of the DNS is to map domain names (or IP addresses) to computers. And since the  DNS is really just a database, we can have the IP address associated each domain names hanging off of the nodes. A domain is simply defined as any particular node in the Namespace and everything below it. So, for example, the VeriSign.com domain is everything below it. The .com domain consists of 80 million domain names.

Welcome to VeriSign Live

2009-05-27T20:10:04Z

The best thing about VeriSign is the people who are passionate about the work they do on technologies that they perceive as critical to the world's well being. When someone asks them "what do you do?" they get to say "I help keep the Internet running" or "I help keep people safe online."

The goal of this blog is to shine a spotlight on the people who make things happen at VeriSign. They aren't bloggers, and they may not be corporate spokespeople. I'm fascinated by what the geeks do, but I won't discriminate -- if a non-geek deserves attention, we'll be in their face with nosy questions and an annoying video camera. But overall, this blog will try to be the best place to go for a big picture look at everything that's happening inside VeriSign.

Our first blog, "The Infrablog" launched over three years ago with Michael Graves and David Recordon. Other great bloggers have come and gone as well, but the fact remains that many of the extraordinary folks at VeriSign aren't telling their stories. "VeriSign Live" is here to change all that!

Please post comments with your thoughts, questions, and criticisms. We might not like what we hear, but at least we'll be having a dialogue. Let the conversation begin!