n. A Class 1 ID provides assurance to the server that the client is using an identity issued by Verisign but little guarantee about the actual person behind the ID.Class 2 Digital IDs require third party confirmation of name, address, and other personal information related to the user, and they are available only to residents of the United States and Canada. The information provided to Verisign is checked against a consumer database maintained by Equifax. To protect against insiders at Verisign issuing bogus digital IDs, a hardware device is used to generate the certificates.Class 3 Digital IDs are not available. The purpose is to bind an individual to an organization. Thus, a user in possession of such an ID could, theoretically, prove that he or she belongs to the organization that employs him or her.The idea behind Digital IDs is that they are entered into the browser and then are automatically sent when users connect to sites requiring personal certificates. Unfortunately, the only practical effect is to make impersonating users on the network only a little bit more difficult.Many Web sites require their users to register a name and a password. When users connect to these sites, their browser pops up an authentication window that asks for these two items. Usually, the browser than sends the name and password to the server that can allow retrieval of the remaining pages at the site. The authentication information can be protected from eavesdropping and replay by using the SSL protocol.As the number of sites requiring simple authentication grows, so does the number of passwords that each user must maintain. In fact, users are often required to have several different passwords for systems in their workplace, for personal accounts, for special accounts relating to payroll and vacation, and so on. It is not uncommon for users to have more than six sites they visit that require passwords.In the early days of networking, firewal...
