Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2002/084

Towards Provably-Secure Timed E-Commerce: The Trusted Delivery Layer

Amir Herzberg

Abstract: Certified exchange of messages is an essential mechanism for e-commerce; the timing aspects (timeouts and timestamps) are very important for practical applications. However existing formal methods for security analysis assume simplified completely synchronous or completely asynchronous models, and cannot deal with the timing aspects of these (and other e-commerce) protocols. We present model for realistic, Δ-synchronized adversarial settings. We then present a simple, efficient and provably-secure protocol for certified, time-stamped message delivery, providing precise guarantees of delay and timestamps. Our model and analysis use concrete (rather than asymptotic) notions of security.

Category / Keywords: secure electronic commerce; non-repudiation; timestamp; certified delivery; certified mail; certified e-mail; notarized delivery; notarization; e-banking; contract signing; timestamping

Date: received 27 Jun 2002, last revised 8 Feb 2004

Contact author: herzbea at cs biu ac il

Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation

Note: Substantially improved version.

Version: 20040208:163009 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2002/084

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