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November 17, 1997, Section: News & Analysis

White Pages For Digital Certificates

By Salvatore Salamone and Rutrell Yasin

Taking a cue from the phone company's white pages, VeriSign last week began offering a Web-based public digital certificate directory. The directory lists standards-based digital certificates that secure E-mail sent over the Internet. The service works with any E-mail client that supports the LightWeight Directory Access Protocol (LDAP), allowing users to find another person's digital ID through Microsoft's Outlook Express or Netscape Communication's Messenger E-mail applications. A user only has to compose an E-mail message and click on the necessary security icon in their E-mail application. The user can then sign and encrypt a message. If the sender can't find the digital ID for the recipient of the E-mail, a dialog box will direct him to the appropriate ID. VeriSign also introduced the Secure E-mail Network Directory, which makes it easier for users to distribute digital IDs to people they want to send secure E-mail to, according to VeriSign officials.