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@pagefooting(immediate, left "@c<Technical Report 1996>",
center "@c<Computer Science>",
right "@c<Carnegie Mellon>")
@heading(An Efficient Commerce System)
@heading(CMU-CS-96-191)
@center(@b(Andrew C. Myers))
@center(November 1996@foot<This report is a revision of an undergraduate thesis submitted to Princeton University in May 1996.>)
@center(FTP: CMU-CS-96-191.ps)
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@begin(text)

We give an introduction to some of the issues surrounding the construction
of electronic commerce systems and discuss some proposed solutions:
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@begin(itemize)
Visa and MasterCard's SET

First Virtual's Green commerce model

DigiCash

Millicent
@end(itemize)

We also present a new payment protocol created to enable the electronic
purchase of small bits of information such as database queries, newspaper
articles, web searches, etc. Our system's goals:
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@begin(itemize)
The minimum acceptable transaction size will be about ten cents.

Committing fraud will be very difficult.

Merchants will not know customers' identities.

The credit company will not know what customers buy.
@end(itemiate)

Security is implemented with one-way hash functions. We chose not to use
public key cryptography because it would make transactions too
computationally expensive.

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@begin(transparent,size=10)
@b(Keywords:@ )@c<Electronic commerce, DigiCash, First Virtual, Millicent,
secure electronic transactions>
@end(transparent)
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@end(text)
@flushright(@b[(32 pages)])