Server IDs enable secure online communications through Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) technology. Global Secure Site IDs enable
the negotiation of SSL or TLS sessions using strong 128-bit RC2 or RC4 encryption.
Encryption is a method of scrambling messages so they cannot be read without decryption keys. The length of the key used to
encrypt messages is a good indication of the amount of effort needed to decrypt that message. Any software with encryption
features having key lengths over 40 bits is considered strong encryption by the U.S. Government for export purposes.
Until recently, U.S. export laws made it virtually impossible for a browser and a server to communicate using key lengths
longer than 40 bits unless both the server and browser were located within the U.S. Many feel that 40-bit encryption is too
weak given the computing power available today. In a January 1999 experiment sponsored by RSA Data Security, a message that
was 40 bit-encrypted was decrypted by a University of California graduate student in under 8 hours.
However, by increasing the length of the key by one bit, the amount of effort required to crack the code doubles. VeriSign
Global Secure Site IDs enable certain types of browsers, available almost everywhere in the world, to initiate 128-bit
sessions with the server. 128-bit encrypted messages are 309,485,009,821,345,068,724,781,056 times harder to break than
40-bit messages. Thus, it would take the same technology used to crack the RSA 40-bit message 1 trillion x 1 trillion years
to crack a 128-bit message. That's several trillion times longer than the age of the Earth.
Until recently, export versions of Web browsers (they're also commonly used within the U.S.) encrypted data only in 40-bit
sessions. Now, the latest export and domestic versions of Netscape and Microsoft Internet Explorer browsers can encrypt
transactions with your site using strong encryption in 128 bit sessions.