Importance

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Abstract

The present invention is directed to a combination software and/or hardware system that provides consumers and merchants with a secure method for making and accepting credit card and ATM card payments over the Internet. Using various software and/or hardware implementations, the system operates by: 1) creating (at the consumer's Internet access device) a Data Encryption Standard (DES) encrypted Personal Identification Number (PIN) Block meeting American National Standards Institute (ANSI) X9.8 and Automatic Teller Machine (ATM) network requirements (as a result of the consumer entering their PIN number and encryption automatically taking place); 2) using additional layer(s) of encryption (also performed at the consumer's Internet access device) to place the PIN block and card information in a public key/private key encrypted financial payment transaction data block ('FP Block'); 3) transmitting the FP Block to the merchant, along with any necessary product or service order information, which may be transmitted over the Internet encrypted or in the clear according to the implementation method chosen by the system software at the merchant's web site; 4) software at the merchant location then forwards the FP Block to a secure transaction management system, where the FP Block is decrypted using a decryption algorithm matching that used by the software at the consumer's Internet access device. The financial data is then re-formatted for transmission to the appropriate transaction processing network, and forwarded to the payment service processor accordingly. The present invention is independent of the encryption algorithm(s) used, and may be implemented with any number of encryption algorithms.

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First Claim