Practical implementation of compact e-cash.
«mobiEcash»

Dmitry Vikharev, Alexey Khrolenko

E-cash represents a new form of payment systems. This state-of-art IT research area was opened recently, but some developed countries have already made an attempt to apply it in practice. Such payment systems are rapidly gaining popularity nowadays.

E-cash intends to replace usual cash with its digital analogue. It should provide significantly stronger resistance to forgery and possibility to make off- line payments on the cash desk when there is no connection to the bank’s network. One of major advantages of e-cash is ability to provide total anonymity for users, like paper cash do.
The fundamental problem of e-cash implementation is necessity to combine all above-mentioned features with guaranteed ability to reveal forgeries and illegal copying attempts. Another difficulty is to meet system requirements and limitation of secure portable storage devices like smartcard or SIM card, which should provide storing amount of digital cash sufficient for everyday payments. The solution of this problem was lately introduced in so-called “compact e-cash”.

This research paper presents practical implementation of extended “compact e-cash” payment system based on the last achievements in this area.

Keywords: micropayment, e-cash, compact e-cash, smart-card, anonymity

Bio

Master student of Higher School of Economics, information security engineer. During university studies he was a leader for institute teams in ACM ICPC (2004-2006), Far Eastern programming contest and Microsoft ImagineCup, also took part in Microsoft business seminar Start In Garage. The scope of his interests includes IT directions like mobile payments, high-loaded and high-available systems, but he also give much consideration to various aspects of effective team building and project management.

Bio

Master student of Higher School of Economics, information security engineer. He appreciates thorough books and sophisticated tasks. The most significant achievements are parachute jump and second place at Russia stage of ImagineCup world programmer’s contest. “KISS” principle is his vital philosophy. He’s interested in high-loaded systems, high availability, and cryptography.