Weakly Secret Bit Commitment: Applications to Lotteries and Fair Exchange

Abstract

This paper presents applications for the weak protection of secrets in which weakness is not just acceptable but desirable. For one application, two versions of a lottery scheme are presented in which the result of the lottery is determined by the ticket numbers purchased, but no one can control the outcome or determine what it is until after the lottery closes. This is because the outcome is kept secret in a way that is breakable after a predictable amount of time and/or computation. Another presented application is a variant on fair exchange protocols that requires no trusted third party at all.

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Document Details

Document Type
Technical Report
Publication Date
Jun 01, 1998
Accession Number
ADA464109

Entities

People

  • Paul Syverson

Organizations

  • United States Naval Research Laboratory

Tags

Communities of Interest

  • Energy and Power Technologies

DTIC Thesaurus Topics

  • Algorithms
  • Authentication
  • Boundaries
  • Computations
  • Computers
  • Contracts
  • Cryptography
  • Cybersecurity
  • Guarantees
  • Information Operations
  • Massachusetts
  • Military Research
  • Money
  • Motivation
  • Payment
  • Probability
  • Resistance

Fields of Study

  • Computer science

Readers

  • Cybersecurity.
  • Government Contracting/Procurement.
  • Naval Personnel Management