VeriSign: Cybersecurity starts with schools

How far along is the US?
Other countries are farther ahead of us... I think there are a lot of us who believe it would be a good thing if we could move faster. I think that's one of the challenges right now with the standards committees. They are working on 1970s and 80s kinds of time frames for adoption versus 1990s and 21st century frames of adoption.

When it comes to improving people's security practices, do you think we need to begin in grade schools?
It has to start at that kind of level when the kids are first introduced to computers. This is the first generation that grew up with the Internet as something they use every day. My kid is piping her IM to her phone. We are into a generation where the technology is going to be taken for granted. The question becomes, can we get them to appreciate and understand the pain of implementing security? I think it will happen because of events that drive that kind of awareness.

We hear about broadband executives who talk about quarantining subscribers who aren't doing enough to protect their systems. That is, you wouldn't have a right to be on the network if you fail to meet certain obligations.
It's a stick-and-carrot problem... I think some combination of that is going to become part of the service contract in the long term.

What are the big issues related to Internet registration going to be in 2005? It seems to always be a perennial controversy.
Oh, I think there is more noise than there is substance at the moment. We are in a legal dispute with ICANN, where we are trying to get clarity on the contract. We would be thrilled -- no matter what the outcome -- just to understand what they have responsibility for governing with us and what they don't. If that clarity comes in 2005, that would be a good thing.

The .net rebid is going on and the bids are due sometime in March, while the award will come in June. I think we have a good chance of winning it again. VeriSign will do $1.4bn in revenue next year, while .net is about $25m of that. So it's not a big enough source of revenue to impact us negatively.

Do you think the government should be more active in its oversight of ICANN's processes?
"I don't know" is the honest answer. A significant amount of the economy is running on the Internet and a lot of traffic runs through those addresses. So I think that's a real challenge.

We are up to 14 billion requests a day right now. When we bought Network Solutions, it was one billion a day. There's a lot of infrastructure behind all that and a lot of intellectual property that we've added. So I think that this is going to be an interesting test and a very important decision for ICANN.

ICANN needs to make sure its processes are fair and transparent. It also needs to make sure they chose a provider who can actually do this at scale. I think the US government is going to have to keep a close eye to make sure that there aren't some risks that potentially extend to the economy.

What do you think would be an appropriate level of government activism in this particular case?
I think it needs to ensure that the process is, in fact, transparent and objective... and that there won't be any subjective criteria. I think having the [government] have some oversight over that process and some dialogue with ICANN to make sure the process is followed is probably about the most they are willing to do.

There's been some discussion about the UN taking a more prominent role. Is that kind of change required?
Throwing it over to some [international] body is like trading one problem for another. Look, ICANN was created at a very unique time, right at the height of the bubble. There was a dramatic amount of pressure on the US because so much of the Internet was happening here and not elsewhere. The Clinton administration wanted to be more inclusive of international bodies and so it came up with a mission of increasing competition from what had been a monopoly operated by Network Solutions. I would love to see a strong ICANN with transparent processes focused on stability and innovation.