March 6 Assignment: Law & Internet Seminar (LAW 745)

Electronic Commerce and Electronic Infrastructures

We will focus on the use of digital signatures in commerce, and the need they create for a digital signature infrastructure. Current proposals envisage this consisting primarily of Certification Authorities (CAs) that would link identities (or other facts about persons) to public keys.

Reading:

1. I've written a short article on the Importance of Trusted Third Parties in Electronic Commerce. (Available from distribution center.) Extra credit to anyone who finds substantive errors. Gratitude for other suggestions on how to improve it.
2. The State of Utah has thoughtfully collected many of the major law-related documents on its digital signatures website. Please pay particular attention to:
   • The Tutorial.
   • The Introductory Commentary.
   • The Draft ABA Guidelines. (Don't ignore the definitions...)
   • The Utah Digital Signature Act. (You can skim this one, it's long...)
3. Benjamin Wright has a critique of the Utah/ABA approach. We will certainly discuss this one in class.

Doing:

Please put a short description of your paper topic on your website. If neither the description itself nor a link clearly identifying it appears on your homepage, please e-mail me the URL where it can be found.

Optional

• Netscape brags that they enable electronic commerce.
• A very advanced paper by Carl Ellison on generalized certificates.