Secure electronic transaction

From ArticleWorld

Secure electronic transaction, also known as SET, is a standard protocol for securing credit card transactions over insecure networks, specifically, the Internet. SET was developed by VISA and MasterCard (involving other companies such as GTE, IBM, Microsoft and Netscape) which started in 1996.

SET makes use of cryptographic techniques such as digital certificates and public key cryptography to allow parties to identify themselves to each other and exchange information securely. It is basically a more stable form of PGP, and is among the most difficult encryption processes to decrypt.

SET was heavily publicized in the late 1990's as the credit card approved standard, but failed to win market share. Reasons for this include; need to install client software (a wallet), cost and complexity for merchants to offer support, comparatively low cost and simplicity of the existing, adequate SSL based alternative.

SET has been successful to date and have been ideal at preventing others from stealing the card number or the person’s identity.

There have already been situations where people have tried to gain these criteria, yet the SET has prevented these incidents from ever happening. The SET has proven itself on countless of times and has proven that it has been a good means of secure purchasing.

SET has been highly successful and has been an encouraging factor for people to perform commerce on the internet. There are still many that are hesitant, but that isn’t from bad experience, but the fear of what may come about. Given time they too may begin to use the internet for this purpose.