Security: The Primary Concern

Security is the only serious concern. If secure transactions can be made using mobile phones then subscribers - currently over 300 million in the case of GSM and the figure is still heading north - are going to make big-time use of the new services. The reason is simple: convenience. No need to look for small change if you want a Coke from the vending machine. This is a somewhat trivial example, but the benefits of being able to conduct a financial transaction while mobile are considerable. Examples include paying via the telephone bill for purchases like petrol (gas) and services such as parking, but this is only the beginning, the tip of a very large iceberg. As soon as phones and point-of-purchase systems are Bluetooth-enabled, almost everything and anything becomes possible. Throw WAP and the ability to display graphics into the equation and some really interesting apps take shape. For example, a group of friends are having a drink and decide to take in a movie. They browse through the local entertainment service, decide which one they want to see, take a look at the seating plan, select the best free seats and purchase the tickets. The transaction is stored in the mobile, so when they arrive at the cinema there is no need to queue; the purchaser merely points his/her phone at the checkpoint and through they all go!

PKI Moves Forward Across The Globe PKI assumes use of public key cryptography and it is widely used for authenticating a message or encrypting and decrypting a message. The combination of private and public keys with certificate and registration authorities ensures that nothing of value (e.g. a credit card number) is transmitted over the air. In addition, digital signatures and digital certificates (digital IDs), which are issued by a certification authority, are employed. Governments in Hong Kong, France, Germany, Italy, Malaysia, Singapore, Canada as well as most states in the USA, have accepted digital signatures and the EU (European Union) drafted a directive for a common framework in May 1998.

The capabilities of the mobile terminals are being enhanced to enable "Micro-browsing". In the interest of enabling e-business these same Micro-browsers" are delivering the ability to secure transactions between mobile terminals and e-business portals. To secure these transactions the telecommunications equipment must provide the means to authenticate the transacting parties and bind the "users" to the transactions. Digital certificates from Entrust Technologies enable authentication and digital signatures providing the means required to support mutual authentication and the binding of users to transactions. These capabilities are powerful enablers that will transform the mobile terminal into a mobile point of sale device. Mobile terminals are now supporting the processing and the storage of personal credentials in order to support digital signatures.

Mobile users are demanding Trust for all of their transactions and Entrust Technologies is applying its knowledge, experience and conformance to emerging standards, like WAP, to bring trust to this new realm of the Wireless Internet transaction.

Entrust technologies and Infomaster are making it safe to conduct business on the wireless Internet.

WAP Gateways

Entrust is the first and only commercially available on-line certificate issuance service for the Nokia WAP Server product. The on-line service was commercially launched on the same date that Nokia released their WAP Server v1.1 product.
Entrust is actively working with the leading developers of WAP gateway and server products.
Mobile phones
Entrust has completed testing with the Nokia 7110 and Nokia 7190 WAP phones.
Entrust is actively working with the leading developers of WAP mobile terminal products.

Entrust and WAP Specification Conformance The Wireless Applications Protocol is an open, global standard that empowers mobile users with wireless devices to easily access and interact with information and services. WAP has been optimized to meet the constraints of wireless networks and devices, utilizing binary transmission for greater compression of data, and is optimized for long latency and low to medium bandwidth. For more information on WAP please visit http://www.wapforum.org

V1.1 - Fully compliant. To date the Entrust WAP Server certificates are the only commercial vendor           certificates proven to work with WTLS.
V1.2 - Products in development.
V1.3 - Products in development.
PKIX - Fully compliant to RFC2510
PKCS - Full compliance with PKCS#1, 3 5, 7, 8, 10, 11

Entrust Technologies products and services currently, and will continue to, meet the specifications produced through the WAP Forum.

(Some of the information is sourced from Entrust Technologies.)