A Provider Based Accounting Architecture

1
A Provider Based AccountingArchitecture

• Róbert Párhonyi, Dick Quartel, Aiko Pras
• University of Twente
• Enschede, the Netherlands
• IPOM 2002 Workshop
• Dallas
• October 30, 2002

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Outline

• Motivation for content accounting
• Definition of a content accounting system
• Problems with current solutions
• Requirements
• The basic provider based accounting architecture
• PBA scenario
• Security threats
• Conclusions

3
Outline

• Motivation for content accounting
• Definition of a content accounting system
• Problems with current solutions
• Requirements
• The basic provider based accounting architecture
• PBA scenario
• Security threats
• Conclusions

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Motivation

• Considerable penetration of Internet in our daily
  life
• Amount of content published is growing
• More content will be non-free
• Content providers see new opportunities to make a
  successful business and move towards paid content
  (17,5of CPs in 2001 moved from free to paid
  content)
• Current trend profit oriented content providers.

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Outline

• Motivation for content accounting
• Definition of a content accounting system
• Problems with current solutions
• Requirements
• The basic provider based accounting architecture
• PBA scenario
• Security threats
• Conclusions

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Definition
Content accounting consists of the functions of
metering content consumption, collection and
storage of metered data and definition of pricing
schemes to perform the charging and finally, the
billing of customers.
Billing
Charging
Pricing
Data Collection Storage
Metering
Metering
Content
Content
Information flow
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Outline

• Motivation for content accounting
• Definition of a content accounting system
• Problems with current solutions
• Requirements
• The basic provider based accounting architecture
• PBA scenario
• Security threats
• Conclusions

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Problems

• Particular definition and implementation of
  accounting functions (e.g., metering strategies,
  storage data format etc.) - no standards
• Many payment systems used to settle the financial
  obligations not all payment mechanisms are
  available or suitable in certain situations
  (e.g., credit card - SVoD)alternative payment
  models creates uncomfortable situations for
  customers
• Dominating solution server based accounting
  (SBA) - periodical subscriptions, advance
  payments, long-term relationships, mostly credit
  card payments smaller pieces of content are not
  available for less.

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Outline

• Motivation for content accounting
• Definition of a content accounting system
• Problems with current solutions
• Requirements
• The basic provider based accounting architecture
• PBA scenario
• Security threats
• Conclusions

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Requirements

• Customers should always use the same payment
  system irrespective the content provider they
  communicate with
• Customers should trust the organization providing
  the billing function
• Organizations providing the billing should have
  trust relations to assure their financial
  collaboration
• The architecture should cope with small amounts
  of money, process them online, instantly and
  anonymously.

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Outline

• Motivation for content accounting
• Definition of a content accounting system
• Problems with current solutions
• Requirements
• The basic provider based accounting architecture
• PBA scenario
• Security threats
• Conclusions

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PBA Approach
Our proposal ISP organizations providing the
billing function.
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PBA Why ISPs?

• Almost 33 of adults willing to pay for content,
  would like to pay their own ISPs (Jupiter
  Research)
• ISPs have a large, trusted customer base with
  contracts, and can offer a value added service
• ISPs have already a billing relationship with
  their customers
• ISPs can create revenues beside transport
  accounting
• Success in the telecom world (0900 numbers)

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PBA Basic architecture
The PBA architecture allows customers to pay to
their own ISPs for billable content received from
various content providers, while these providers
will receive these payments from their own ISPs.
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PBA Message flow
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Outline

• Motivation for content accounting
• Definition of a content accounting system
• Problems with current solutions
• Requirements
• The basic provider based accounting architecture
• PBA scenario
• Security threats
• Conclusions

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PBA scenario for SVoD
Client side
Server side
ISP 1
ISP 2
video server module
Acc. module
Acc. module
video player module
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Outline

• Motivation for content accounting
• Definition of a content accounting system
• Problems with current solutions
• Requirements
• The basic provider based accounting architecture
• PBA scenario
• Security threats
• Conclusions

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Security threats

• Main attacks
• destruction or modification of information
• masquerading
• repudiation
• replay

• Possible mechanisms
• authentication
• msg auth code
• signatures
• timestamp

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Outline

• Motivation for content accounting
• Definition of a content accounting system
• Problems with current solutions
• Requirements
• The basic provider based accounting architecture
• PBA scenario
• Security threats
• Conclusions

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Conclusions

• outsourcing of the payment sub-function is
  becoming more common ISPs are good candidates to
  become Payment SPs
• customers always use one payment systems for all
  CPs
• flexible and hybrid payment system with the
  possibility to include existing ones and allowing
  online, instant and anonymous payments
• trust between the parties involved can be solved.