next up previous
Next: Introduction

SAM: A Flexible and Secure Auction Architecture Using Trusted Hardware

Adrian Perrig Sean Smith
Dawn Song J. D. Tygar
UC Berkeley, Dartmouth College
{perrig,dawnsong,tygar@cs.berkeley.edu, sws@cs.dartmouth.edu} gif

Abstract:

Increasing numbers of economic transactions are conducted through on-line auctions. Nevertheless, most current auction implementations fail to address important security concerns. In particular, most auction systems force buyers and sellers to trust the auctioneer; alternative secure systems are inflexible and have a high computational and/or communication overhead.

To overcome these limitations, we propose a secure auction marketplace (SAM) architecture, based on the recently available tool of high-performance, programmable secure coprocessors.

Unlike previous schemes, this approach provides a general framework that can incorporate arbitrary auction schemes by using different evaluation programs, as well as provide complex security properties by using the secure coprocessor and our auction protocols.

Our approach features strong security guarantees for the buyers and sellers without trusting the auctioneer, precise definition of the information disclosed during and after the auction, and high flexibility to adapt to new types of auctions. Keywords: Secure auction architecture, secure coprocessor.




next up previous
Next: Introduction

Adrian Perrig
Tue Jan 23 20:35:17 PST 2001