Strongboxes for electronic commerce

As electronic commerce becomes a reality, additional services related to electronic commerce will also emerge. The current paper proposes the provision of electronic strongboxes as an integrated part of the wider electronic commerce. The strongbox concept is introduced as an electronic counterpart of physical strongboxes typically found in large traditional financial institutions, such as banks, having secure vaults or other secure physical storage. The work identifies some requirements of electronic strongboxes both from the functionality perspective and from the security point of view. A simple framework for an electronic strongbox system is also presented.