Web services for efficient micro-payment protocol

Abstract

As the rapid evolution of Internet application, E-Commerce is playing a more and more significant role. However, small value transaction through the Internet has still not yet got very popular despite its urgent need. With an efficient micropayment protocol, small-value transactions on web services can be developed in a better condition. A key aim of this study is to design an efficient micropayment protocol with highly secure, low costs and effective features. The payment scheme will be designed with a balance between security and features and transaction costs. An efficient micropayment protocol is proposed, which is based on the Peppercoin [16] scheme. Our scheme inherits not only the low protocol cost benefit, but also resolves many of the major limitations of general micropayment schemes. With this protocol, a great amount of processing costs can be reduced. In addition, the number of digital signature operations required can be greatly reduced by sharing a vendor signature within a time interval. Also, session-based serial numbers, which are maintained by Vendor, resolve the problem of sequential serial number maintained by every Client in Peppercoin [16]; at the same time, it still guarantees that consumers who are billed for exactly the amount they spend. In order to implement the newly designed protocol, a web service prototype which collects small value payments for services provided through the Internet, for example, the viewing of a set of news articles, will be built. In all, the new protocol not only is highly secure and easily compatible with existing payment mechanisms such as credit cards, but also can be implemented in an easy-to-use manner.