An Architecture for Pseudonymous e-Commerce

Current e-commerce practice enforces a customer to disclose his/her identify to the e-shop. The use of credit cards makes it straightforward for an e-shop to know the real identity of its customers. Although there are some payment systems based on untraceable tokens, they are not as widely used as credit cards. Furthermore, even without buying anything, a customer is already disclosing some information about who he or she may be or where he or she is by just connecting to the e-shop's Web server and leaving behind an IP address. The Pseudonymity System described in this paper is a simple and effective way of buying goods over the Internet without having to reveal the customer's real identity.