Domain registrar VeriSign and America Online will show a prototype safe chat room, the companies announced October 26. The room, which will use authentication technology to verify user ages, is expected to be shown in December.
"AOL has always been a leader in protecting children and families online," AOL executive vice president David Gang said in a statement. "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."
VeriSign chairman and chief executive Stratton Sclavos was also expected to demonstrate the concept during a keynote address at the Digital ID World conference in Denver.
“The Internet is providing a foundation for a dramatic transformation of commerce, communications and society,” Scalvos said in his own statement. “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.”
For their part, i-SAFE hopes the VeriSign-AOL partnership means even safer Internet experience for children.
"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," i-SAFE president Teri Schroeder said at the VeriSign-AOL announcement. "It is imperative that we give our youth the tools to be proactive cyber citizens while 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."
AOL chat rooms range from the simple and innocent to the sexually explicit. AOL and VeriSign said they want to spread this safe chat technology to schools and other forums for children, teenagers, and families. VeriSign's two-factor authentication application will integrate to AOL standards for secure log-ins and other security applications, the companies said.
The project aims to offer a single platform for managing two-factor authentication including tokens and safe cards, VeriSign and AOL added.
This follows a growing trend among the Internet's top players to work toward safer surfing, including Google deploying their SafeSearch filter to block adult Websites, though the early results from that filtering have been mixed at best, according to several analyses.
The two companies also announced that VeriSign's new two-factor authentication application will be integrated with AOL standards to enable secure log-in and other security applications for consumers. The software is designed to provide a single platform for providing and managing two-factor authentication credentials, including tokens and smart cards.
