root nameservers top-level domains .com and .net, one of the largest SS7 signaling networks in North America, the RFID directory for EPCGlobal and a variety of security and telecom services. The company calls it all "intelligent infrastructure" In the first of a two-part interview, GlobeSt.com asked Callan to explain more about VeriSign's business.

GlobeSt.com: VeriSign "is the trusted provider of Internet infrastructure services for the digital world." In plain English, what does that mean?Callan: VeriSign provides several key components of the Internet as we think of it today. The two most important of these are Domain Name Services (DNS) and Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) Certificates. DNS services connect a typed Web address (such as www.verisign.com) to an actual machine-language address, which is typically a set of four three-digit strings separated by dots. Among other domain extensions, VeriSign provides DNS service for all .com and .net Web addresses.

VeriSign is also the oldest and most popular provider of SSL Certificates. SSL Certificates are the basic technology that enables encrypted communication when attaching to a Web site and SSL Certificates also can be a mechanism that verifies the identity of a Web site so that a visitor can confirm exactly which business she is attaching to.

GlobeSt.com: Why are services and products like that important to commercial real estate sites, which don't conduct commerce online, but still have an abundance of data to protect?Callan: Sites do not need to conduct e-commerce to be potential risk points for their visitors. In fact, the most feared form of online crime by end users is identity theft, whereby online criminals gather the essential information required to create false identities and obtain credit by abusing a real victim's good financial reputation. Real estate transactions are activities full of information that would be beneficial to an online criminal seeking to steal identities for fraud purposes, and Internet users are aware of this fact. That awareness leads to reductions online businesses people are willing to undertake.