Surveying definitions of coercion resistance

Thomas Haines; Ben Smyth

Paper 2019/822

Surveying definitions of coercion resistance

Thomas Haines and Ben Smyth

Abstract

We explore formal definitions of coercion resistance (WPES'05, FC'09, CRYPTO'10, and CSF'10), conceived to capture the strongest privacy notions achievable by voting systems. We find all but one is unsuitable, demonstrating difficulties faced by our community in formalising this property and raising questions over the security of schemes striving to deliver coercion resistance. We find the remaining definition to be reliant on burdensome combinatorial analysis, prohibiting immediate application. We propose a variant that simplifies application. We also patch an unsuitable definition and introduce sufficient conditions to simplify proofs.

Metadata

Available format(s): PDF
Category: Cryptographic protocols
Publication info: Preprint. MINOR revision.
Keywords: election schemes
Contact author(s): research @ bensmyth com
History: 2020-08-31: revised; 2019-07-16: received; See all versions
Short URL: https://ia.cr/2019/822
License: CC BY

BibTeX

@misc{cryptoeprint:2019/822,
      author = {Thomas Haines and Ben Smyth},
      title = {Surveying definitions of coercion resistance},
      howpublished = {Cryptology {ePrint} Archive, Paper 2019/822},
      year = {2019},
      url = {https://eprint.iacr.org/2019/822}
}