Clearinghouse : A Payment Framework for Distributed Object

This thesis describes the design and the details of the preliminary implementation of Clearinghouse: a "per-call" payment framework for an interoperable, distributed object environment. Clearinghouse has two notable features. First, it has a paymethod abstraction layer which simultaneously supports multiple payment methods; in other words, Clearinghouse can be used for any payment method (e.g. PayWord [20] or credit card) as long as its implementation conforms to the interface of the abstraction layer. The paymethod abstraction layer allows individual payment methods to evolve without requiring changes to be made to the existing payment framework or to objects being paid using the payment methods. Second, this payment framework provides a user an "electronic wallet" residing in the local Clearinghouse process. This feature allows the user the option to select and configure one or more supported payment methods before initiating a network call to purchase a remote object invocation. Clearinghouse is an extension module of ORBlite [6], a "software bus" which enables interoperability among distributed object systems possibly implemented in different programming models and on operating systems. Adding the payment framework to ORBlite provides an electronic commerce capability to the distributed objects. Thesis Supervisor: Hal Abelson Title: Professor