WWW: Beyond the Basics

Chapter 8. Commerce

8.2.6. CyberCash

8.2.6.1 Summary of CyberCash

CyberCash, Inc. (CyberCash, "CyberCash Home") was founded in August 1994 with the goal of providing secure financial transactions over open networks. In April 1995, they began providing secure credit card transactions. Their payment system used 1024-bit RSA encryption to protect transactions on the Internet.

On October 7, 1996, CyberCash announced a partnership with Netscape to become the first product that implements the Secure Electronic Transactions credit card payment protocol. CyberCash's software will be included in Netscape's LivePayment server software. Additionally, CyberCash announced on October 30, 1996 that it would support Microsoft Merchant Server(CyberCash, "CyberCash and Industry...").

CyberCash recently introduced CyberCoin technology to support micropayments in the range of $0.25 to $10.00 and up. In the next section of this chapter, we will see that is one interpretation of micropayments.

8.2.6.2 A CyberCash transaction

After the user locates an item she wants to purchase, CyberCash software forwards encrypted payment information to the vendor. The vendor can decrypt the order information, but cannot decrypt the user's account numbers or other personal information. The vendor forwards the order information to CyberCash. CyberCash takes the information off the Internet, decrypts it, and sends the payment transaction across existing financial networks. When the appropriate financial institution approves the transaction, CyberCash returns approval to the vendor, and the vendor then delivers the product to the user. The CyberCash web site describes the six steps in a secure Internet credit card payment (CyberCash, "The Six...").

[PREV][NEXT][UP][HOME][VT CS]

Copyright © 1996 Patrick N. Brooks
All Rights Reserved

Patrick N. Brooks <pbrooks@vt.edu>