Analysis of the SET e-commerce protocol using a true concurrency process algebra

Abstract

A formal specification of the purchase phase in the SET protocol (Secure Electronic Transaction), an e-commerce protocol by Visa and MasterCard, is presented. It is modelled by means of a True Concurrency Timed Process Algebra called BTC which takes into account that the (limited amount of) available resources in a system have to be shared by all the processes. We have considered heterogeneous resources and we extend the algebra with the intention of representing the actions which use the shared resources and how many resources of each type the system has at its disposal.