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The Cocaine Auction Protocol: On the Power of Anonymous Broadcast

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Book cover Information Hiding (IH 1999)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNCS,volume 1768))

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Abstract

Traditionally, cryptographic protocols are described as a sequence of steps, in each of which one principal sends a message to another. It is assumed that the fundamental communication primitive is necessarily one-to-one, so protocols addressing anonymity tend to resort to the composition of multiple elementary transmissions in order to frustrate traffic analysis.

This paper builds on a case study, of an anonymous auction between mistrustful principals with no trusted arbitrator, to introduce “anonymous broadcast” as a new protocol building block. This primitive is, in many interesting cases, a more accurate model of what actually happens during transmission. With certain restrictions it can give a particularly efficient implementation technique for many anonymity-related protocols.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Computer Laboratory, University of Cambridge, New Museums Site, Cambridge, CB2 3QG, UK

    Frank Stajano & Ross Anderson

  2. AT&T Laboratories Cambridge, 24a Trumpington Street, Cambridge, CB2 1QA, UK

    Frank Stajano

Authors
  1. Frank Stajano
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  2. Ross Anderson
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Computer Science, TU Dresden, 01062, Dresden, Germany

    Andreas Pfitzmann

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© 2000 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Stajano, F., Anderson, R. (2000). The Cocaine Auction Protocol: On the Power of Anonymous Broadcast. In: Pfitzmann, A. (eds) Information Hiding. IH 1999. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 1768. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/10719724_30

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/10719724_30

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-67182-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-46514-0

  • eBook Packages: Springer Book Archive

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