Financial Cryptography '97

Workshop Information

Feb 17-21

Here is an outline of the topics to be covered in the 5-day workshop.

• Security on the Internet
  • Internet Protocols: IP, TCP, UDP
  • Higher-level Protocols: Telnet, FTP, HTTP, SSL
  • Solid Foundations for Cryptographic Systems
  • A History of Internet Attacks
  • Building Internet Firewalls
  • Building a Bastion Host
  • Turning your Bastion Host into a Web Server
  • Non-internet Internet Security
• Cryptography
  • The Need for Cryptography
  • History of Cryptography
  • Classical Methods
  • Modern Methods
  • Private and Public Key Cryptography
  • Authentication vs. Security
  • Certification and Public Key Infrastructures
  • Cryptographic Protocols
  • Engineering a Cryptographically Secure System
  • Why Cryptography is Harder than it Looks
  • Security Through Obscurity and How to Recognize Snake Oil
• Internet Payment Systems
  • Payment models: coin-based, cheque-based, account-based
  • Security Issues
  • Privacy and Anonymity Issues
  • Smartcards vs. Software
  • Existing Payment Schemes
    • credit cards
    • First Virtual
    • CyberCash
    • DigiCash
  • Forthcoming Payment Schemes
    • SET
    • Mondex
    • Millicent
    • micropayments
• Setting Up an ecash-Enabled Web Server
  • Setting up the Web Server
  • Signing up for ecash
  • Installing the ecash Module
  • Setting Prices
  • Logging
  • Advanced Methods
    • ecashiers
    • moneychangers

The Instructors

Ian Goldberg, a Ph.D. student in security and cryptography at the University of California, Berkeley who discovered the much-publicized flaw in Netscape's implementation of SSL. He has since gone on to become recognized as a leading expert in electronic payment systems, and DigiCash's ecash in particular. He has produced clients for Unix and Windows, as well as a module for the Stronghold web server, which can combine to extend the existing ecash system to one with better security, privacy, and ease-of-use characteristics.

Gary Howland, who previously worked on digital cash systems for DigiCash, and then went on to become the person behind the Systemics SOX protocol, a flexible payments system currently in live use in a bond trading environment (an implementation of which will shortly be made available to the world). He is also responsible for the Cryptix and PGP libraries in Perl, and partly responsible for the Cryptix and PGP library implementations in Java.

Adam Shostack, a security consultant based in the Boston area. He has extensive background in designing, implemlenting and testing secure systems for clients in the medical, computer, and financial industries. His recent public work includes 'Apparent Weaknesses in the Security Dynamics Client Server Protocol,' 'Source Code Review Guidelines,' and comparisons of freely available cryptographic libraries.

Register for the workshop