Second USENIX Workshop on Electronic Commerce
Token-Mediated Certification and Electronic Commerce
Daniel E. Geer, Jr., Sc.D., Donald T. Davis
Open Market, Inc.
Abstract
Public key technology presumes the availability of certificates and
certifying authorities (CAs) living within a shallow hierarchy rooted
at a few (n<<100) public CAs. We propose an alternative that lessens
the day-to-day dependence on centralized CAs while deepening the
certificate tree. We do this by suggesting that smartcards provide CA
functions, thus re-framing some payment problems as simpler
authorization problems.
View the full text of this paper in
ASCII (53,703 Bytes) and
POSTSCRIPT (125,356 Bytes) form.
To Become a USENIX Member, please see our
Membership Information.
|