VeriSign and America Online will demonstrate the first “safe chat room” for kids and teens that uses authentication technology to verify a child’s age.
Stratton Sclavos, VeriSign chairman and CEO, will showcase this capability — undertaken in coordination with i-SAFE, a non-profit foundation created to educate students about safe online behavior — during a keynote address later today at Digital ID World 2004 in Denver, CO. The companies intend to work together to expand the use of this technology through schools and other youth and family-oriented venues.
In addition, VeriSign and AOL announced that they had extended their strategic partnership and plan to work to integrate VeriSign’s new two-factor authentication tokens with AOL standards, to enable secure log-in and other security applications for consumers seeking stronger authentication when accessing the Internet and associated services.
“The Internet is providing a foundation for a dramatic transformation of commerce, communications and society,” said Stratton Sclavos, chairman and CEO, VeriSign. “Unfortunately, with that transformation will come new threats such as malicious software, identity theft and criminals who prey on our young. VeriSign and AOL will work together to find ways to help protect security-conscious consumers through the integration of our technologies, and we will help consumers combat these and other risks as they emerge.”
“AOL has always been a leader in protecting children and families online,” said David Gang, Executive Vice President, AOL Products. “Our partnership with VeriSign and the demonstration today with i-SAFE offer examples of how we plan to use new technologies to continue to protect our members, secure their communications, and keep their identities safe from hackers and predators.”
“i-SAFE is dedicated to educate and empower our nation’s youth on safe and responsible cyber citizenship,” said Teri Schroeder, President of i-SAFE America. “Just as we’ve been teaching kids about physical safety in the real world, we need to help them be safer in the online world. It is imperative that we give our youth the tools to be proactive cyber citizens when communicating with others in cyber space. i-SAFE’s relationship with VeriSign has empowered i-SAFE to bring these tools to our young people and set a firm foundation for a culture of adoption to incorporate these tools into their daily lives.”
VeriSign Unified Authentication consists of a comprehensive set of software and services that provide a single integrated platform for provisioning and managing all types of two-factor authentication credentials, including tokens and smartcards. By integrating with a service provider’s or enterprise’s existing directory and identity-management architecture and leveraging VeriSign’s highly-scalable validation infrastructure, VeriSign Unified Authentication dramatically reduces the complexity and cost of two-factor authentication.
murdok | Breaking eBusiness News
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