SPP ICS -> SPP ICS user guidelines to results -> key results CNEC 1998-99 according to projects

Key Results of SPP ICS / CNEC 1998-1999 Projects on Electronic Commerce
grouped according to projects

The key results of the SPP ICS Competence network for Research and Development in Electronic Commerce are grouped according to projects. For each project, a short paper (pdf file) on the results can be viewed or downloaded when clicking on the link in the "key result no." column. The address of a contact person can be found at the end of this result paper.

Contact: You may also contact the SPP ICS programme management:
Jean-Michel.Grossenbacher@mcnet.ch.

Project: CATI - Charging and Accounting Technologies for the Internet
(CAPIV & Medeb)

Contact: Prof. Dr. B. Stiller; TIK ETHZ, Zürich; stiller@tik.ee.ethz.ch

Key result no.	Key results	Requirements for additional work and extended co-operation; future work on key results
CATI-1 (CAPIV & Medeb)	An integrated scenario and architecture for Charging and Accounting Technologies for Internet (CATI) has been defined, supporting IntServ/DiffServ service models and for VPN management mechanisms. Security and trust features are incorporated, and a business model has been developed.	Generalization required of the business model for Differentiated Services and for VPN service scenarios for future heterogeneous Internet Service Provider markets. Further R&D work needed.
CATI-2 (CAPIV & Medeb)	Pricing models for Internet-Services and basics for a cost model have been developed and evaluated.	Further trial and experimentation work in a real user/provider environment needed. Future European 5th FW project "M3I" will work in this area
CATI-3 (CAPIV & Medeb)	sample IP telephony application with charging and accounting extensions in reservations and a graphical user interface have been designed, implemented and demonstrated .	Further engineering work necessary for full integration of User Interfaces with widespread productive IP telephony applications Deployment of an Integrated Services Internet equipment and infrastructure (a.o. RSVP, Traffic Control) required.
CATI-4 (CAPIV & Medeb)	VPN service management has been designed, implemented and demonstrated, based on a hierarchy of brokers with a Web-based VPN configuration user interface.	Full integration of management configuration functionality into quasi-standard vendor equipment required, however, in principle, product/service development can proceed.
CATI-5 (CAPIV & Medeb)	accounting and flow detection approach has been designed and implemented.	Based on generalized ideas, a dedicated solution for an ISP scenario has been developed, therefore, in principle a basic product/service development can proceed.
CATI-6 (CAPIV & Medeb)	Signalling methods for trading Internet Service Level Agreements and for bandwidth brokering have been developed and verified by simulation.	Further R&D work needed on signalling methods for SLAs.
CATI-7 (CAPIV & Medeb)	A set of demonstrators has been developed on Charging and Accounting extensions, VPN management service, and flow accounting and detection tool for Internet.

Project: MacPay & MicPay - Macropayments and Micropayment
Schemes for Uncorrelated / Correlated Payments

Contact: Mr. M. Michels; Entrust Technologies/Europe, Glattzentrum ZH;

Key result no.	Key results	Requirements for additional work and extended co-operation; future work on key results
Smartpay-1 (MacPay & MicPay)	A new-generation robust payment scheme for Macro Payments has been developed for secure use over open networks. It is based on public key cryptography, while other cash systems in use today are essentially based on symmetric cryptography. The ECBS Electronic Purse TCD 101 working draft for POS payments was taken as technology basis.	Potential future work is the transfer to the recently issued POS standard CEPS and its integration into a real world PKI. Partners would be banks that intent to switch their purse system to CEPS and a PKI vendor.
Smartpay-2 (MacPay & MicPay)	The basic design of two secure micro-payment schemes applicable to two applications (HyperNews and IP-Phone) has been performed and implemented on a JavaCard. A hash-chain based micro-payment scheme has been developed where the identities of all service providers are included in the root of the chain.	The results of the project may be applied in value cards for supporting the IP Phone applications.
Smartpay-3 (MacPay & MicPay)	The Resource Reservation Protocol RSVP (RFC 2205) has been extended for carrying hash chain payment information for IP phone applications. The extensions of RSVP have been implemented in Java. A first prototype illustrates the feasibility of the chosen approach.	The results achieved with the design of payment and charging extensions for protocols will be utilized in the M3I project that is part of the European Union's Fifth RTD Framework Program.
Smartpay-4 (MacPay & MicPay)	For allowing the off-line purchase of documents, the required cryptographic functionalities have been implemented on a smart-card. This permits to effectively replace an on-line financial institution, developed in the SPP project 'HyperNews'. The requirements and concepts for the integration of the smart card have been defined and implemented for the HyperNews system.	The expertise and technology gained in the SmartPay projects in the operation and capabilities of smart cards will be reused in the development of the authentication and security system for the visually impaired users of the ABA ("Association pour le Bien des Aveugles") library. Furthermore, the combined payment and access control mechanism used in the HyperNews application is a basic technology for encrypted data streams (like digital video), and will be applied in the planned SPP ICS ElCom 2000 project "StreamCom".

Project: Mercurio

Contact : A. Coignet, Operating Systems Lab, EPFL, Lausanne; allan.coignet@epfl.ch

Key result no.	Key results	Requirements for additional work and extended co-operation; future work on key results
Merc-1	Non-repudiation protocols have been developed based on SSL (Secure Socket Layer), allowing to prove later on that an exchange has taken place between two parties.	Future work: protocol opinizations
Merc-2	Non-repudiation protocols have been integrated by developing CORBA extensions (E-CORBA). This allows any service running on top of it to use the non-repudiation security service.
Merc-3	Service components that allow to retrieve non-repudiation proofs of CORBA requests/replies and also to set up non-repudiation protocols features from the services, using E-CORBA.
Merc-4	An architecture has been developed primarily for allowing non-savvy providers to offer their services integrating non-repudiation security services to customers, without having to know how to integrate this security service into their application (handled by the E-CORBA platform).

Project: Domain Name Exchange (DNX)

Contact : Dr. Jarle Hulaas, CUI Uni Geneva; jarle.hulaas@cui.unige.ch

Key result no.	Key results	Requirements for additional work and extended co-operation; future work on key results
DNX-1	The viability of mobile agent technology as a generic infrastructure for business-to-business e-commerce has been demonstrated using the application of Domain Name Exchange( DNX). Particular attention was given to the case where the reservation or purchase of distributed goods needs to be personalized by the customer. The developed event notification service is also a useful model for future large-scale customizable information filtering systems.	Further R&D work needed on issues such as performance, security (especially in open environments), and appropriate programming models in the mobile agent environment. In the project DNX a somewhat restricted, but nevertheless promising approach has been used.
DNX-2	Solutions have been developed regarding security in mobile agent platforms, cooperation in heterogeneous environments, use of code mobility to enhance reliability (delegating responsibility through remote execution of customer transactions).	These results need to be explored further in upcoming research projects at UniGE and UniZH.
DNX-3	New market models have been developed and proposed in the domain name business, with well-defined roles and enhanced guarantees for the domain name holders (registrants).	Further work is to submit these ideas to experts of the domain name business (such as our industrial partners) to enhance our propositions and to obtain support for their dissemination. The results are to be extrapolated to name businesses beyond the application to Internet domain names.
DNX4	Domain Name EXchange (DNX) is a practical application of agent technology to the secure management of the domain name space, with a new software architecture supporting original value-added services. Proposition for a new IETF standard for domain name registration protocols.	Need for more tests of DNX with CORE's delayed name registry system. Cooperation with lawyer associations in the form of new projects is also under investigation in order to develop techniques for online conflict resolution.

Project: Electronic Market for Requests for proposals (RFP)

Contact: Dr. A. Lang, BFSH1/INFORGE, Uni Lausanne; andre.lang@hec.unil.ch

Key result no.	Key results	Requirements for additional work and extended co-operation; future work on key results
RFP-1	An operational web site has been developed to support and ease the Request for Proposal (RFP) process. Tailored for business-to-business e-commerce, it offers all necessary tools to create, publish, submit, analyse and follow (audit trail) a RFP, allowing therefore to dramatically reduce costs and time, and to substantially increase effectiveness. This electronic platform can be used by any industry sector for any product or service.	With actual support from Swisscom AG, the state of Geneva, Vaud and the Vaud Chamber of Commerce, we are now actively seeking industrial partners to use our web site (www.rfp.ch). By providing a sufficient number of requests for proposals and by supporting the use of our electronic platform, collaboration with large corporations as well as public administrations and chambers of commerce is the key for the ultimate success of this project.
RFP-2	Requests For Proposals (RFP's) follow specific rules and processes depending on the industrial sector and specific regulations. An electronic platform for RFPs has been built around a dynamic structure allowing to customize each step of the process and the interaction between buyers and sellers.	No further work is planned in this area as these results were achieved using previous work performed at the University of Geneva.
RFP-3	The use of XML has been validated as exchange medium and its combined use with HTML (X-HTML) to support the creation, processing and analysis of complex documents.	The functionalities that can be implemented to leverage the use of XML and HTML need to be further investigated. Collaboration will continue with our present partners at the EPF Lausanne

Project: Scalable Intelligent Electronic Catalogues (Scalcat)

Contact : Prof. B. Faltings, LIA EPFL Lausanne; faltings@lia.epfl.ch

Key result no.	Key results	Requirements for additional work and extended co-operation; future work on key results
Scalcat-1	For scalable electronic catalogues applications have been developed using constraint programming to create product configuration applets.The selected applications support airline travel planning and health insurance.	Each application requires modeling of its constraints to fit the tool. Commercialization is currently being discussed.
Scalcat-2	A new way has been developed for users to interact with electronic catalogues using a conversational interface, helping to elicit criteria and needs.	User studies will probably be carried out with EPFL students in the spring of 2000.
Scalcat-3	A new way of networking electronic catalogs within a single framework, based on a standard interchange language.	The new standard interchange language needs further development work (e.g. in the IMCR project of the SPP ICS).

Project : Secure Electronic Contracts (Seco)

Contact: B. Schopp, mcm Uni St.Gallen; Bernd.Schopp@unisg.ch

Key result no.	Key results	Requirements for additional work and extended co-operation; future work on key results
Seco-1	'Secure Contract Container' has been developed offering the necessary intelligence to support secure transactions between contract parties using cryptography and digital signatures.	Support of non-repudiation functionality; and secure interface for digital signature process of the contract object need to be further addressed.
Seco-2	A central "Contracting Container for secure electronic contracts" has been developed that processes and stores the contracting information that supports the transparency of contract enforcement mechanisms. These require that the contract is legally binding and all the information to enforce it is securely processed and stored.	International legislation is required to provide a legal basis for enforceable contracts. Further work on security mechanisms which give insights in the risk of market transactions (e.g. insurances etc.) . Interest groups should be set up between various players (arbitrating courts, certification authorities etc) that support the transaction process.
Seco-3	Electronic contract templates for certain business applications have been developed for supporting longterm contracts for Business to Business ElCom. Business processes can be combined (controlled, executed, abut) with the support of electronic contracts based on intelligent documents, that include workflow logic.	International legislation is required to provide a legal basis for enforceable contracts. Further work on security mechanisms which give insights in the risk of market transactions (e.g. insurances etc.) . Interest groups should be set up between various players (arbitrating courts, certification authorities etc) that support the transaction process.
Seco-4	Proof of the applicability of the Reference Model Electronic Markets as a general model for the Modelling and Development of Electronic Business Solutions	Application and refinement of the models and derived methodologies
Seco-5	Electronic contract functions have been developed for the support of an integrated information flow throughout the entire electronic commerce transaction. Electronic Markets can be characterized as distributed applications, that support the search of products and services, the contracting phase and the settlement of a market transaction.	Specification of different market services which can support the contracting process (e.g. arbitration court

Project: ACE Flow - Deploying Agile Customer-Supplier Chain
and Efficient Process management with Federated Workflow Systems

Contact: C.Stricker, LEM EPFL Lausanne; claude.stricker@hec.unil.ch

Key result no.	Key results	Requirements for additional work and extended co-operation; future work on key results
ACE-1	Concepts have been developed and validated for supporting a market of federated workflow and supply chains, in particular for an electronic market of federated workflows to enable better coordination of out-sourced processes. The feasibility has been demonstrated with the case of software development process.	Additional work :A standard interface enabling to access any kind of catalog's. Tests with more than 2 WFMS. Publication of ACE-flow standard of communication between Trader and WFMS (XML).
ACE-2	A prototype of a computer supported federated workflow and process engineering system has been developed: SER Proflow Workflow systems have been linked with an automated trader (binder). This binder can be reused with other Work Flow Management Systems (WFMS) in order to open the federation to any other systems wanting to enter the market. Also the automated trader and the catalogs technology software prototypee and their technical reports can be reused for further experiments and development.	Additional WFMS technology providers would be needed for interfacing their workflow products with ACE-flow trading system.
ACE-3	Tools for inter and intra organizational collaboration have been developed: Any kind of services can be electronically outsourced with ACE-flow mechanism (printing, market survey, publishing, software development, logistics (transport, shipping etc.). Providers of outsourced processes send automatically during execution status to the outsourcers.	ACE-flow platform is of interest to any industry association or communities that need to better support their outsourcing market.

Project : An Electronic Commerce Reference Model (Refmod)

Contact: V. Koerner, mcm Uni St.Gallen; Veith.Koerner@UNISG.CH

Key result no.	Key results	Requirements for additional work and extended co-operation; future work on key results
Refmod-1	The use of a validated Reference Model for Electronic Markets is recommended as a methodology guiding the development of Electronic Business Solutions from the development of the concept to the actual implementation. Validation has been performed with the ElCom projects.

Project : NetAcademy