Rambling paraphrase from a chat with the CEO of Versign...
Security as a growth market. Innovation isn't invention, he thinks its integration. Microsoft, Verisign and all the telecom carriers are trying to prepare the country so it can thwart a digital 9/11 event. Need early detection systems. If Microsoft is made more secure, that just means that Linux or something else will be the next target.
(just then the PC that was projecting a title slide in the background crashed and rebooted)
The Internet is inherently insecure, we will create layered approaches and what remains is a risk model.
How can you write off $14b and still be on the job? The NSI acquisition was done all for stock when the price was high to acquire an asset that generates 65% of their revenue. They sold the retail storefront, but kept the rest, the core of complex infrastructure. They run 10 billion network interactions a day. Certificates, directory services, telecom business (25% operating margins) all being put on this infrastructure. In the last 90-days, four ILECs issued RFPs for VoIP -- carrier world is about the change. They are looking to serve this market.
On ICANN: I am the only CEO in the history of technology to have gone to the government and asked them to regulate it. Well meaning charter, poorly executed. Now stability and security is the most important thing about the network. The UN voted down the ITU initative, a victory for the private sector. But this isn't my father's Internet...you have to be kidding me that we have volunteers running portions of the network. Commerce, not consensus is the way to drive the network.
On Verizon site-finder: There are 400 million plus users, majority like it, 200 people are against it and got the press against it. Was a way to monetize DNS lookups.
We have to move the complexity back into the center of the network and remove it from the edge.
My ears are starting to hurt. This is a fundamental mischaracterization of how the Internet actually works and has been able to scale. Mitch has better notes on this session
