One of the main driving forces behind the growth of the Internet was undoubtedly the ability to buy things quickly and easily. For sellers, running an online store is much cheaper and more convenient than renting physical space, hiring salespeople, maintaining checkout counters, and so on. On this day, a credit card payment was made over an encrypted connection.
In the early days of e-commerce, users were worried about the security of their data. To make a purchase, they had to enter sensitive information from their accounts or credit cards. During the 1990s, companies actively worked on solving this problem. Online stores needed to remove as many barriers as possible between themselves and potential customers.
On August 11, 1994, Phil Brandenberger visited the online store NetMarket and ordered Sting’s album Ten Summoner’s Tales on CD. The purchase cost him $12.48 plus shipping. He paid by credit card, with the card number transmitted in encrypted form using PGP (Pretty Good Privacy).
One of NetMarket’s creators, Daniel Kohn, made a memorable point about the strength of the encryption in an article published by The New York Times: even if the NSA tried to intercept the transaction, it would not be able to read the customer’s credit card number.
Sources
- Fast Company — How the Internet Went Mainstream in 1994
- Cryptoanarchy Wiki — Mailing List Archive, August 1994
See also The 1993 U.S. Encryption Initiative: The Clipper Chip and Its Legacy.