SSP: Session Sychronization Protocol And Its Application In E-Commerce

This article defines SSP (Session Synchronization Protocol), a newapplication protocol based on SIP (Session Initiation Protocol) andSDP (Session Description Protocol), which provides a set of standardmethods for synchronized collaboration of different players in e-commerce transactions. SSP is independent from other e-commerceprotocols and it could be integrated with them flexibly. SSP, forthe first time, provides a set of simple and reliable methods, basedon industrial standards, to ensure the integrity of combined e-commerce transactions. It also provides new solutions for thesecurity guarantee of e-commerce transactions.This protocol has several characteristics:1) It can synchronize several different entities in combined e-commerce transactions using different human interfaces.2) It can enable third-party entities to watch an e-commercetransaction in real-time without showing those entities theconfidential content of the transaction, such as the total sum ofcash, the quantity of exchanged commodity or the details of thecommodity.3)It can enable third-party entities to watch an e-commercetransaction in steps, that is, to let third-party entities to knoweither that every agent has finished a specified step of the wholetransaction, or otherwise all agents can tell that the transaction isin trouble during the specified step.4)Since SSP is based on SIP, it can be applied easily into NextGeneration Networks (NGN) which include IPv6 networks, communicationnetworks and three-in-one networks.According to the above characteristics of SSP, in this article, wewill present several applications to explain how we can apply SSPinto combined e-commerce transactions and increase the security anddata-integrity of the combined transactions. 1) To enhance thesynchronization of different agents in combined e-commercetransactions. 2) To ensure the atomicity of combined e-commercetransactions. 3) In mobile commerce (m-commerce), to allow a customerto pay through a simpler but securer personal mobile device whileenjoying a multimedia service provided by the merchant through lesssecure but feature-rich devices. 4) To help insurance companiesparticipate in an e-commerce transaction. In the past, generally ane-commerce transaction may only include a customer, a merchant and abank. Now insurance company and other supervisor bureau etc. canattend a transaction to supervise the process of the transaction. Theinsurance company could compensate the loss of a transaction if itdoes happen. Most importantly, the commerce confidential and theprivacy of the customers will not have to be revealed to thesupervising agents.