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