computer science

Verisign

Verisign is a computer science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Verisign rather than just read about it. In short: Verisign, Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, .web and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc country-code top-level domains, and the back-end systems for the .jobs and .edu sponsored top-level domains. In 2010, Verisign sold its au…

Key takeaways

Verisign belongs to computer science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Verisign to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Verisign from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Verisign, Inc. is an American company based in Reston, Virginia, that operates a diverse array of network infrastructure, including two of the Internet's thirteen root nameservers, the authoritative registry for the .com, .net, .web and .name generic top-level domains and the .cc country-code top-level domains, and the back-end systems for the .jobs and .edu sponsored top-level domains. In 2010, Verisign sold its authentication business unit – which included Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate, public key infrastructure (PKI), Verisign Trust Seal, and Verisign Identity Protection (VIP) services – to Symantec for $1.28 billion. The deal capped a multi-year effort by Verisign to narrow its focus to its core infrastructure and security business units. Symantec later sold this unit to DigiCert in 2017. On October 25, 2018, NeuStar, Inc. acquired VeriSign's Security Service Customer Contracts. The acquisition effectively transferred Verisign Inc.'s Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) protection, Managed DNS, DNS Firewall and fee-based Recursive DNS services customer contracts. Verisign's former chief financial officer (CFO) Brian Robins announced in August 2010 that the company would move from its original location of Mountain View, California, to Dulles in Northern Virginia by 2011 due to 95% of the company's business being on the East Coast. The company is incorporated in Delaware.

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 (set to expire in 2000) and a time-limited non-compete agreement. The new company served as a certificate authority (CA) and its initial mission was "providing trust for the Internet and Electronic Commerce through our Digital Authentication services and products". Prior to selling its certificate business to Symantec in 2010, Verisign had more than 3 million certificates in operation for everything from military to financial services and retail applications, making it the largest CA in the world. In 2000, Verisign acquired Network Solutions for $21 billion, which operated the .com, .net and .org TLDs under agreements with the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) and the United States Department of Commerce. Those core registry functions formed the basis for Verisign's naming division, which by then had become the company's largest and most significant business unit. In 2002, Verisign was charged with violation of the Securities Exchange Act. Verisign divested the Network Solutions retail (domain name registrar) business in 2003 for $100 million, retaining the domain name registry (wholesale) function as its core Internet addressing business. For the year ended December 31, 2010, Verisign reported revenue of $681 million, up 10% from $616 million in 2009. Verisign operates two businesses, Naming Services, which encompasses the operation of top-level domains and critical Internet infrastructure, and Network Intelligence and Availability (NIA) Services, which encompasses DDoS mitigation, managed DNS and threat intelligence. On August 9, 2010, Symantec completed its approximately $1.28 billion acquisition of Verisign's authentication business, including the Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificate Services, the Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) Services, the Verisign Trust Services, the Verisign Identity Protection (VIP) Authentication Service, and the majority stake in Verisign Japan. The deal capped a multi-year effort by Verisign to narrow its focus to its core infrastructure and security business units. Following ongoing controversies regarding Symantec's handling of certificate validation, which culminated in Google untrusting Symantec-issued certificates in its Chrome web browser, Symantec sold this unit to DigiCert in 2017 for $950 Million. On 14 December 2021, the Ministry of Justice, Communication and Foreign Affairs of the Tuvalu Government announced on Facebook that they have selected GoDaddy Registry as the new registry service provider for the domain after Verisign did not participate in the renewal process. In 2011, Verisign was selected by the General Services Administration (GSA) to operate the registry services for the .gov top-level domain. They continued to operate .gov service until 2023, when Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency (CISA) chose Cloudflare to replace Verisign as the .gov operator. Verisign's share price tumbled in early 2014, hastened by the U.S. government's announcement that it would "relinquish oversight of the Internet's domain-naming system to a non-government entity". Ultimately ICANN chose to continue VeriSign's role as the root zone maintainer and the two entered into a new contract in 2016.

Naming services

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Historical logo

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Verisign

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Verisign claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In computer science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Verisign before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Verisign ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Verisign

In research: Verisign appears in computer science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Verisign in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Verisign is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics 1995 establishments in Virginia, 1998 initial public offerings, American companies established in 1995, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Verisign outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Verisign in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Verisign means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Verisign out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Verisign in simple terms?

Why does Verisign matter?

Because it connects several computer science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Verisign?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Verisign.