Secure Electronic Sealed-Bid Auction Protocol with Public Key Cryptography

Michiharu KUDO 

Publication
IEICE TRANSACTIONS on Fundamentals of Electronics, Communications and Computer Sciences  Vol.E81-A  No.1  pp.20-27
Publication Date: 1998/01/20
Online ISSN: 
Print ISSN: 0916-8508
Type of Manuscript: Special Section PAPER (Special Section on Cryptography and Information Security)
Category: 
Keyword: 
sealed-bid auction,  protocol,  public key cryptography,  certificate,  network service, 

Full Text: PDF

Summary: 
This paper proposes a secure electronic sealed-bid auction protocol (SEAP) that provides an auction service on the Internet by combining three providers: an auction service provider, a key service provider, and a time service provider. The SEAP uses public key cryptography and the concept of a time-key certificate. The most important property of this protocol is that time-dependent security requirements can be strictly satisfied. The SEAP satisfies the following nine security requirements: (a) no one can deny having made a bid; (b) the protocol should be secure against malicious acts; (c) no bidder can act for another bidder; (d) no one can know who else is bidding until the time comes for the bids to be opened; (e) no one can discover the contents of any of the bids until the time comes for the bids to be opened; (f) the successful bid must have been submitted before the bidding deadline; (g) all bidders can verify that the auction policy has been correctly implemented; (h) the successful bidder can be identified without being required to make himself or herself known; and (i) the bidding contents cannot be altered. The protocol consists of three subprotocols: the Registration Subprotocol, the Bidding Subprotocol, and the Auction Subprotocol. The protocol parameters and algorithm are described in detail.