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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.


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Last changed: 15 April 2002 aw
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