Generalizing multi-party contract signing

Sjouke Mauw, Saša Radomirović

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

3 Citations (Scopus)

Abstract

Multi-party contract signing (MPCS) protocols allow a group of signers to exchange signatures on a predefined contract. Previous approaches considered either completely linear protocols or fully parallel broadcasting protocols. We introduce the new class of DAG MPCS protocols which combines parallel and linear execution and allows for parallelism even within a signer role. This generalization is useful in practical applications where the set of signers has a hierarchical structure, such as chaining of service level agreements and subcontracting. Our novel DAG MPCS protocols are represented by directed acyclic graphs and equipped with a labeled transition system semantics. We define the notion of abort-chaining sequences and prove that a DAG MPCS protocol satisfies fairness if and only if it does not have an abort-chaining sequence. We exhibit several examples of optimistic fair DAG MPCS protocols. The fairness of these protocols follows from our theory and has additionally been verified with our automated tool. We define two complexity measures for DAG MPCS protocols, related to execution time and total number of messages exchanged. We prove lower bounds for fair DAG MPCS protocols in terms of these measures.

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPrinciples of Security and Trust
Subtitle of host publicationPOST 2015
EditorsRiccardo Focardi, Andrew Myers
PublisherSpringer
Pages156-175
Number of pages20
ISBN (Electronic)9783662466667
ISBN (Print)9783662466650
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 2015
Event4th International Conference on Principles of Security and Trust, POST 2015 held as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2015 - London, United Kingdom
Duration: 11 Apr 201518 Apr 2015

Publication series

NameLecture Notes in Computer Science
Volume9036
ISSN (Print)0302-9743
ISSN (Electronic)1611-3349

Conference

Conference4th International Conference on Principles of Security and Trust, POST 2015 held as part of the European Joint Conferences on Theory and Practice of Software, ETAPS 2015
Country/TerritoryUnited Kingdom
CityLondon
Period11/04/1518/04/15

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Theoretical Computer Science
  • General Computer Science

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