Tech Bytes: 2 Firms to Cooperate On Digital Certificates

Diversinet Corp. and Verisign Inc., two leaders in digital certificate technology, said they have agreed to cooperate.

They said they have worked for several months to assure compatibility between Diversinet's Passport Authorization Server and Verisign's OnSite certificate management service.

The result is "greater flexibility in defining access-control restrictions and privileges to mission-critical applications throughout the enterprise," they said in a joint announcement.

Toronto-based Diversinet offers an efficient certification method, Permits, that assigns to a certificate holder a defined level of access to a given application. A new certificate does not have to be issued for each specific function, such as downloading a pay-per-view program or executing a stock trade.

"With Diversinet's authorization technology, a new dimension is added to the authentication process, extending the functionality of the Verisign digital certificate," said Stratton Sclavos, president and chief executive officer of Verisign in Mountain View, Calif.

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