Secure Electronic Transactions:The Book.

This page supports Larry Loeb's book Secure Electronic Transactions: Introduction and Techncial Reference . It is published by Artech House (Boston, MA). Artech's website is at <www.artech-house.com>, their 800 number is 1-800-225-9977, email goes to artech@artech-house.com, and snail mail to 685 Canton St., Norwood, MA 02062. The list price is $69.95. Click here for the table of contents.

Larry's newest (2002) book is called "Hackproofing XML" and is published by Syngress Publishing of Norwood MA. It's also swell.

The first book published that opens up the SET mystique; the book and CD-ROM package comes complete with working demos of SET as well as reference implementation C code. Additionally, a working demo of RSA's S/Pay system (complete with encryption) is provided. Rounding out the combination are a few handy utilities for certificate management. The CD-ROM is readable by both PCs and Macs.

SET is the transacation scheme pioneered by Mastercard and VISA that allows for payment card transactions over unsecured networks like the Internet.The book is both an introduction to and reference manual for SET. Managers as well as programmers will find in the book cogent, clear explanations of the SET system, and how it can be applied to e-commerce.

Visa and Mastercard have decided not to support SET due to antitrust concerns. The book is still a great primer on secure systems, with information on how to design them, cryptography and the like. (Systems that follow SET will have to look somewhat like it, with probably thinner client wallets). The principles that all secured systems follow are covered in the book, so if this is your interest there is still great value in it.

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Things of Interest:

• If you are having trouble setting up the demo system included with the book, note that there are two quickstart.pdf files hiding on the CD. Check both of them, make sure you've done it their way, and only then yell for me.
• The Japanese Payment Option document (a .zip file of 126K) can be accessed by clicking here. This document is critical if you wish to use SET under the Japanese banking system.
• Version 1.3 of the SET Interoperability document (576K, RTF format) is available by clicking here
• Tony Lewis has compiled a 23K Word document outlining known problems in the SET 1.0 ASN.1 and in the preliminary documentation. Click here to get it.

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