Anonymous payment with a verification possibility by a defined party

• US 7,490,069 B2
• Filed: 05/29/2003
• Issued: 02/10/2009
• Est. Priority Date: 05/30/2002
• Status: Expired due to Fees

• Current Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Original Assignee: International Business Machines Corporation
• Inventors: Camenisch, Jan
• Primary Examiner(s): Fischer; Andrew J.
• Assistant Examiner(s): KUCAB, JAMIE R
• Application Number:
  US10/448,098
• Publication Number:
  US 20050010535A1
• Time in Patent Office: 2,084 Days
• Field of Search: 705/74, 705 50- 79, 713/180
• US Class Current: 705/74
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/02 involving a neutral party, e.g. certification authority, notary or trusted third party [TTP]
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/027 involving a payment switch or gateway
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/06 Private payment circuits, e.g. involving electronic currency used among participants of a common payment scheme
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/12 specially adapted for electronic shopping systems
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3823 combining multiple encryption tools for a transaction
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/3829 involving key management
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/383 Anonymous user system
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/401 Transaction verification
• CPC Class Codes: G06Q 20/42 Confirmation, e.g. check or permission by the legal debtor of payment
• CPC Class Codes: G07F 7/1016 Devices or methods for securing the PIN and other transaction-data, e.g. by encryption arrangements for secret communication, see H04L9/00
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/42 Anonymization, e.g. involving pseudonyms
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 2209/56 Financial cryptography, e.g. electronic payment or e-cash
• CPC Class Codes: H04L 9/3263 involving certificates, e.g. public key certificate [PKC] or attribute certificate [AC]; Public key infrastructure [PKI] arrangements network architectures or network communication protocols for supporting authentication of entities using certificates in a packet data network H04L63/0823

Abstract

The present invention relates to a method for verifying an anonymous payment by a defined party in a communication system providing a public key infrastructure. The method comprising the steps of (a) receiving a validation message from a merchant party, the validation message comprising a proof signature produced by a customer party and an encrypted payment message, the proof signature being derived from a customer secret key, a customer certificate, at least one customer attribute, and the encrypted payment message; (b) verifying the validity of the proof signature based on an issuing public key, a verification public key, and the encrypted payment message; (c) decrypting at least part of the encrypted payment message based on a verification secret key corresponding to the verification public key, thereby obtaining a customer information related to the at least one customer attribute. In the event of the validity of the proof signature (d) the obtained customer information is used for initializing the authorization of the payment.

Claims

1. A computerized method for verifying an anonymous payment by a defined party in a communication system providing a public key infrastructure, the method comprising:

receiving a validation message from a merchant party via an input port of a computer, the validation message comprising a proof signature produced by a customer party and an encrypted payment message, the proof signature being derived from a zero-knowledge proof

     1) of knowledge of a customer secret key, a customer certificate, and at least one customer attribute,

     2) that the encrypted payment message encrypts said customer attribute, and

     3) that said customer certificate is valid and is related to said customer secret key, thereby allowing said customer secret key, said customer certificate, and said at least one customer attribute to remain anonymous to said merchant party;

verifying, by said computer, a validity of the proof signature based on an issuing public key, a verification public key, and the encrypted payment message;

decrypting, by said computer, at least part of the encrypted payment message based on a verification secret key corresponding to the verification public key, thereby obtaining a customer information related to the at least one customer attribute; and

in an event of the validity of the proof signature, the computer using the obtained customer information for initializing an authentication of the payment, and, in an event the proof siginature is not valid, the computer provides an indication that the proof siginature was not valid.

2. The method according to claim 1, wherein the encrypted payment message is derived from the at least one customer attribute and the verification public key.

3. The method according to claim 1, wherein the encrypted payment message comprises multiple encrypted payment messages.

4. The method according to claim 1, wherein the customer certificate comprises a certificate signature on a certificate message, the certificate signature being generated by an issuing party using an issuing secret key corresponding to the issuing public key, the certificate message being derived from a customer public key and the at least one customer attribute.

5. The method according to claim 1, wherein the at least one customer attribute comprises a card number.

6. The method according to claim 1, wherein the at least one customer attribute comprises an expiration date.

13. The method of claim 1, wherein said defined person executing said verifying comprises a validation party and said authentication of the payment is executed by an issuing party and said validation party and said issuing party are isolated from said customer party and said merchant party, each of said validation party, said issuing party, said customer party, and said merchant party having respective secret keys and respective public keys.

14. The method of claim 13, wherein said validation party and said issuing party comprise a combined entity.

7. A program storage device readable by machine, tangibly embodying a program of instructions executable by the machine to perform a method for verifying an anonymous payment by a defined party in a communication system providing a public key infrastructure, the method comprising:

receiving a validation message from a merchant party, the validation message comprising a proof signature produced by a customer party and an encrypted payment message, the proof signature being derived from a zero-knowledge proof

     1) of knowledge of a customer secret key, a customer certificate, and at least one customer attribute,

     2) that the encrypted payment message encrypts said customer attribute, and

     3) that said customer certificate is valid and is related to said customer secret key, thereby allowing said customer secret key, said customer certificate, and said at least one customer attribute to remain anonymous to said merchant party;

verifying a validity of the proof signature based on an issuing public key, a verification public key, and the encrypted payment message;

decrypting at least part of the encrypted payment message based on a verification secret key corresponding to the verification public key, thereby obtaining a customer information related to the at least one customer attribute; and

in an event of the validity of the proof signature, using the obtained customer information for initializing the authentication of the payment, and, in an event the proof signature is not valid, providing an indication that the proof signature was not valid.

8. The program storage device according to claim 7, wherein the encrypted payment message is derived from the at least one customer attribute and the verification public key.

9. The program storage device according to claim 7, wherein the encrypted payment message comprises multiple encrypted payment messages.

10. The program storage device according to claim 7, wherein the customer certificate comprises a certificate signature on a certificate message, the certificate signature being generated by an issuing party using an issuing secret key corresponding to the issuing public key, the certificate message being derived from a customer public key and the at least one customer attribute.

11. The program storage device according to claim 7, wherein the at least one customer attribute comprises a card number.

12. The program storage device according to claim 7, wherein the at least one customer attribute comprises an expiration date.