MasterCard & GTE In Electronic Certification Deal 07/25/96

["Joseph M. Reagle Jr." <reagle@rpcp.mit.edu>]

What I spoke of yesterday:

  	  				 
PURCHASE, NEW YORK, U.S.A., 1996 JUL 25 (NB) -- REPEAT/By  
Ian Stokell. The race is on to provide extensive, secure electronic 
commerce over the Internet. Now MasterCard International and GTE 
Corp. (NYSE:GTE) have announced plans to deliver electronic 
certification services under the new Secure Electronic Transaction 
(SET) standard. 

The certificate authority services will be appearing by the fourth  
quarter, and will be implemented in a number of pilot programs 
worldwide, say the two companies. 

Newsbytes notes that a major obstacle to electronic commerce on  
the Internet is not the lack of suitable technologies, but public 
distrust in having to send credit card numbers electronically, with 
the perception that they can be easily intercepted en route. Industry 
experts say the public needs some sort of proven online security 
methods backed by financial and online heavyweights such as MasterCard. 

A sort of digital certificate will be developed by the two companies  
that will protect both the consumer and vendor against unauthorized 
card number use. The digital certificates will reportedly be issued 
via the Internet to cardholding consumers, Internet merchants, and 
institutions processing the transactions. 

While a number of methods for secure transactions are beginning to  
appear in the online world, notes Newsbytes, none have instantly 
jumped out in front of the pack. 

The companies say that the SET standard appeared first in June, and  
that software to allow it to be incorporated into Internet browsers, 
servers, and gateways will be available by the early fourth quarter 
from several vendors. The standard was developed by MasterCard and 
Visa in cooperation with a number of other companies, including GTE, 
IBM, Microsoft, and Netscape. 

Said Steve Mott, senior vice president, Electronic Commerce/New  
Ventures at MasterCard. "Obtaining digital signatures is expected to 
be no more difficult than signing up for an online service. We are 
also pushing to extend SET certification to chip cards to get added 
hardware/platform security and portability. We expect to extend our 
activities with GTE along these and other lines, so they are a key 
strategic ally for MasterCard and our members." 

Mott added: "We will begin testing the software by the end of the  
summer and through the remainder of this year. The missing link (to 
online commerce) was providing digital certificates to add the extra 
software authentication needed to make SET complete." 

A number of electronic commerce pilots are being planned for the fourth  
quarter. Pilots that have already been announced in which MasterCard is 
participating are in Denmark (with PBS, IBM, and Europay) and Malaysia 
(with MBf and VeriFone). 

GTE plans to offer both certification authority products and services  
under the CyberTrust brand name. CyberTrust will reportedly support all 
popular Web browsers, servers, and other public key-enabled 
applications, such as secure e-mail and electronic data interchange. 

(19960724/Press Contact: Sean Healy, MasterCard International,  
914-249-4606) 
  	   	

_______________________
Regards,            Silence is the voice of complicity. -?
Joseph  Reagle      http://rpcp.mit.edu/~reagle/home.html
reagle@mit.edu      E0 D5 B2 05 B6 12 DA 65  BE 4D E3 C1 6A 66 25 4E