Cryptology ePrint Archive: Report 2014/911

A Denial of Service Attack against Fair Computations using Bitcoin Deposits

Jethro Beekman

Abstract: Bitcoin supports complex transactions where the recipient of a transaction can be programmatically determined. Using these transactions, multi-party computation protocols that aim to ensure fairness among participants have been designed. We present a Denial of Service attack against these protocols that results in a net loss for some or all of the honest parties involved, violating those fairness goals.

Category / Keywords: cryptographic protocols / bitcoin, secure computation

Original Publication (in the same form): Information Processing Letters
DOI: 10.1016/j.ipl.2015.09.009

Date: received 4 Nov 2014, last revised 29 Sep 2015

Contact author: jbeekman at eecs berkeley edu

Available format(s): PDF | BibTeX Citation

Version: 20150930:014029 (All versions of this report)

Short URL: ia.cr/2014/911

Discussion forum: Show discussion | Start new discussion