"SEMPER" Security on the Internet:
Advanced European E-Business Prototype Goes Online
Zurich/Switzerland, March 31, 1998 - First e-business transactions
on the Internet using a security prototype system developed by the
European research project SEMPER (Secure Electronic Marketplace for
Europe) has gone live, in a trial conducted by three companies in
France and The Netherlands. The specifications of the software, which
provides a unique set of integrated security services, are publicly
available on the SEMPER server at www.semper.org.
After an extensive testing phase and successful demonstrations at
several events, among them a conference at the European Parliament in
June and a G10 ministerial conference in July of 1997, SEMPER security
is now being deployed for the e-business of the following three small
and medium-sized companies that have agreed to participate in an
Internet-based field trial:
- OPL / Maris, located in Rijswijk, The Netherlands, specializes in publications on the oil and
gas industry and plans to sell related books, CD-ROMS, and maps, as well as to provide
access to data bases (www.oilpubs.com/SEMPER).
- Acri, a company in Sophia-Antipolis (Antibes) in southern France will offer access to a
database of satellite and aerial photos (eurosud2.eurecom.fr/acrimall).
- Actimedia, also located in Sophia-Antipolis, will sell CD-ROMs in an Internet shopping
mall operated by the Centre International de Communications Avancees (C.I.C.A)
(www.cyberlandpro.com)
The results of the trial, which began in late March, will have
an impact on the final work on the SEMPER project, the objective of
which is to provide the first complete security architecture for doing
e-business over the Internet. It will offer a framework that
integrates all services required for secure electronic
commerce. Already implemented today are
- user authentication, which ensures secure identification of the communicating parties or
their pseudonyms - if anonymity is required - to conduct a certain business;
- digitally signed offers and orders, i.e. the communicating parties receive signed documents
as evidence of their business transactions;
- confidentiality, i.e. the communicating parties can be sure that details of their business are
not revealed unintentionally to third parties;
- secure electronic payments, one type by credit card and two by cash-like transactions. Credit
card payment will be made secure by SET (Secure Electronic Transaction), the standard
supported by Visa and Mastercard. SEMPER makes use of the SET implementation in
IBM's CommercePOINTTM, an e-business software product family, which in turn manages -
in its eTillTM product - various payment systems based on a component developed within
SEMPER. The supported cash-like payment systems are a
smartcard-based electronic purse developed by KPN (the Dutch PTT), and
ecashTM, an online payment system from DigiCash
in The Netherlands.
The final steps in the SEMPER project, which is planned to run
until December 1998, will lead to a significantly extended version of
the specifications available today. Security will be provided for
additional services, such as fair exchange, making sure that a
contract handled online, for example, is provably signed by both
parties. Subsequent developments will include improved techniques for
privacy protection, such as support for anonymity and for certificates
for credit-rating or for a club membership.
"The unique set of integrated security services provided by SEMPER
is an important step towards e-business becoming reliably operational
and widely accepted", says Spiros Konidaris, Director of
Directorate General XIII-B at the European Commission. "It will have a
strong influence on how e-business will be done not only in Europe,
but most likely also worldwide, as it demonstrates leadership in an
emerging marketplace which will become crucial for all kinds of
businesses."
New SEMPER partners
Two new partners joined the SEMPER team in 1997. One of them is
Commerzbank, one of the largest banks in Germany, which has been
involved in several e-business activities in the past. In particular,
it was the first German bank to process credit card payments on the
Internet using the SET standard. Within SEMPER, Commerzbank will
provide banking support for SET for the business trials to be
conducted in 1998. The second new partner is SINTEF Telecom and
Informatics, Trondheim, Norway. Within SEMPER, SINTEF is designing and
implementing an advanced version of the commerce layer, which provides
business-specific services by means of object-oriented applications
programming interfaces (APIs) that support the secure execution of
commercial transactions.
The SEMPER Project and Consortium
The SEMPER project is partly funded by the European Commission as well
as the Swiss government, as part of the European programme on
"Advanced Communication Technologies and Services" (ACTS) established
by the European Commission Directorate General XIII. ACTS is the
follow-on of the "Research on Advanced Communications in Europe"
(RACE) programme. The SEMPER project participates in the G7 pilot
Project "A Global Marketplace for Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises
(SMEs)".
The SEMPER project is led by IBM. The project members are
Commerzbank (D), Cryptomathic (DK), CWI (NL), DigiCash (NL), EUROCOM
EXPERTISE (GR), Europay International (B), FOGRA
Forschungsgesellschaft Druck (D), France-Telecom/CNET (F), GMD German
National Research Center for Information Technology (D), IBM France
(F, project coordination) and IBM Zurich Research Laboratory (CH,
technical lead), INTRACOM (GR), KPN Research (NL), Maris (NL),
Otto-Versand (D), r3 security engineering (CH), SINTEF (N), and the
German universities of Dortmund, Freiburg and Saarbrücken
(D). Sponsoring partners are Acri (F), Actimedia (F), Banksys (B),
Banque Générale de Luxembourg (L), Centre International
de Communications Avances, (F), Enyca Engineering (E), OPL (NL),
Telekurs (CH), and Viajes Eroski (E).
More information in the Internet: www.semper.org.
Above mentioned names may be eventually registered and/or legally
protected trademarks in favor of their proprietors.
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Last modified: Tue Mar 31 1998
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