The Secure Hash Payment System

Abstract

One of the newest media to conduct business in is the Internet. As a matter of fact, consumers and businesses can purchase almost anything online. Since more consumers are making purchases on the Internet, a secure way to make purchases had to be developed. Today, consumers are required to provide their complete credit card information to a merchant to complete a transaction, which requires trust in the merchant and the merchant's security. While this approach is widely available and used, it does not provide a high level of security, which explains why most consumers consider security to be one of their major concerns in making purchases online. The payment system that is being proposed, called the Secure Hash Payment System (SHPS), uses simple cryptographic techniques to provide message and user authentication. SHPS is also designed with world wide use in mind in that the techniques can be used in most countries and can support multiple currencies.