None of our browsers have Java or ActiveX controls enabled. As stated earlier encryption occurs on the buyer's PC and decryption only occurs on our PC at Higgins 1820. At no stage is the transaction decrypted whilst it travels over the Internet, or whilst it is stored on our server. Hence there is no large store of orders available online to invite attack. The encryption is carried out by using a Java applet.
Decryption is carried out on our PC after orders have been downloaded from the web.
The encryption technique used falls into two parts. The Diffie-Hellman key currently used is 256 bits and this will be increased further in the future up to 1024 bits, depending on performance. The following banks have approved their customers use of the system we use - Barclays Bank, Midland Bank and The Royal Bank of Scotland. With SSL, the buyer's personal details, credit card information and other order information is sent from the browser to the server, using industry standard SSL encryption. At the server, the order is encrypted before being written to disk using the same method and encrypting the same fields as is explained in the Java encryption.