Web Security and Commerce

Acknowledgments

Creating this book took a lot of work—far more than was anticipated when the project was begun. Debby Russell suggested the book to us in the spring of 1996, when we were still hard at work on Practical UNIX & Internet Security. Simson took the lead and wrote the bulk of this book. He started working on it in June 1996 and spent the first six months trying to find out what was happening in the world of web security and commerce—and trying to keep up with the steady stream of announcements. In the fall, Gene’s schedule aligned with his interest, and he agreed to join the project.

Many, many people throughout the computer industry gave valuable input for this book.

• At Consensus, Christopher Allen and Tim Dierks reviewed our chapters on SSL.

• At Cybercash, Carl Ellison sent us many email messages about the role and usefulness of certificates.

• At First Virtual, Marshall Rose and Lee Stein gave us lots of juicy information about what they were doing.

• At JavaSoft, David Brownell answered many questions regarding Java and Java’s interaction with digital signatures.

• At Microsoft, Charles Fitzgerald, Barbara Fox, Rick Johnson, Thomas Reardon, and Michael Toutonghi spent a great number of days and nights acquainting us with the issues of SET, Java, JavaScript, and ActiveX security.

• At Netscape, Frank Chen, Eric Greenberg, Jeff Treuhaft, and Tom Weinstein provided us with many technical insights.

• At VeriSign, Michael Baum, Gina Jorasch, Kelly M. Ryan, Arn Schaeffer, Stratton Sclavos, ...