CAFE Final Report

[R. Hirschfeld]

The CAFE Final Report is finally publicly available.  I've attached a
copy of the project's automatic reply message, which includes pointers
to the two volumes.  For those with a technical background, Volume II
is probably of more interest.

When CWI added cover material the PostScript files blew up enormously
in size, but the PDF files are of reasonable size so I recommend
downloading those instead.

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Thank you for your inquiry about the CAFE project.  The CAFE project
ended on February 29, 1996.  A follow-up project, OPERA, whose
partners were primarily banks supporting CAFE, continued the trial of
the CAFE system on the premises of the European Commission in Brussels
and expanded it to a number of locations in Athens.

The OPERA project ended on December 31, 1997.  It demonstrated the
international aspects of the CAFE system, including cross-border
operation with currency exchange.

CAFE delivered its final report to the European Commission.  This
report has been prepared for public dissemination and includes full
specifications of the protocols developed by the project. The reports
are available in CWI's reports database. See:

   Final Report Volume I: Trials and surveys
   -> http://db.cwi.nl/rapporten/abstract.php?abstractnr=1338

   Final Report Volume II: Secure protocols and architecture
   -> http://db.cwi.nl/rapporten/abstract.php?abstractnr=1339

CAFE developed an architecture for general conditional access
applications, including a mechanism for multiple applications from
different providers to work together in a secure fashion.  The trial
was of a prepaid electronic purse application, called Xchange.  Some
of the differences between the trial system and most current
commercial electronic purse pilots are:

CAFE is entirely public-key based.
CAFE supports multiple issuers of electronic value.
CAFE supports multiple currencies, including exchange during payment.
CAFE supports anonymous payments (as an issuer option).
CAFE provides recovery of lost, stolen, and damaged cards.
CAFE supports contactless transactions via infrared wallets.
CAFE protocols are open to public scrutiny.

It should be noted that the CAFE Xchange purse was an experimental
system meant as a test of the concept and the technology, and was not
intended to compete with commercial electronic purse efforts.  A goal
of CAFE was to provide a framework for interoperability between
diverse electronic purse systems.

Ray Hirschfeld
CAFE Technical Director

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