Salt Lake Attorney Appointed to e-Commerce Working Groups
Benjamin T. Wilson to Work on e-Notarization and SSL Certificate Standards
Salt Lake City, UT (PRWEB) September 10, 2005 -- Salt Lake City Attorney
Benjamin T. Wilson has recently been appointed to two working groups of the
American Bar Association’s Section of Science and Technology Law—an
e-Notarization Work Group and an Information Security Committee (ISC) work group
studying the issuance of digital certificates to Internet web sites.
The e-Notarization Work Group is comprised of
representatives from the real estate and mortgage industry, notarial
associations, secretaries of state, and notary regulatory bodies. The task of
the e-Notarization Work Group is to review the underlying security,
enforceability and liability issues applicable to notaries as they make the
transition from ink-and-paper notarizations to the notarization of electronic
documents.
The ISC Work Group is developing a
statement of guidelines for issuers of digital certificates, known as
“Certification Authorities” or “CAs” to follow when verifying the identity of
businesses that request certificates to be used at web sites. Digital
certificates are part of an encryption technology called “Public Key
Infrastructure” or “PKI.”
PKI is used to digitally sign software code
and e-mail communications and to encrypt credit card information and other
personal data transmitted over the Internet. Many consumers have learned to
trust the “lock” icon displayed by most Internet browser programs when
communication is encrypted. However, this trust may diminish in the future by
scams that deceive consumers by mimicking legitimate banking, financial and
commercial sites.
According to Wilson, “What good is encryption if you
are sending your personal information to a fraudulent web site? The hope of the
working group is that the guidelines will be used to improve the identity
verification process and enhance consumer trust in legitimate web sites.”
About Benjamin T. Wilson
Benjamin T. Wilson, JD, CISSP, MCSE is a
legal and policy consultant to business and government on matters involving
business operations, government regulation, information security, and public key
infrastructures. Before joining the law firm of Smith Hartvigsen PLLC as a
partner, Mr. Wilson legal counsel to Digital Signature Trust, a Utah-based
Certification Authority. Mr. Wilson is currently Co-Chair of the American Bar
Association's Information Security Committee where he has written and edited ABA
publications dealing with PKI, digital signatures and information security. Mr.
Wilson is a Certified Information Systems Security Professional and a Microsoft
Certified Systems Engineer. He received both his Honors Degree in Economics and
his Juris Doctor degree from the University of Utah.
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Source : http://www.prweb.com/releases/2005/9/prweb282752.htm