[Cryptography] Proposal of a fair contract signing protocol

[Sidney Markowitz]

mok-kong shen wrote on 25/06/16 10:56 AM:
>> Therefore, the creation of
>> the valid contract is completely under Alice's control at this point,
>> and completely out of Bob's control.
> 
> Did you read what in step 1 Alice promises to do if Bob commits? If Bob
> commits in step 2 and Alice doesn't do step 3 then she breaks her
> promise and Bob could suit her. Note once again that if a contract
> doesn't come into being for technical or human reasons, my definition
> of unfairness is never touched upon, for the definition assumes a
> valid document, i.e. step 3 is completed.

If you say that because of Alice's promise in Step 1 that it is not true that
in Step 3 "the valid contract is completely under Alice's control at this
point, and completely out of Bob's control" then you are asserting that the
promise has the force of taking it out of Alice's control after Step 1. In
which case the validity of the contract is completely under Bob's control in
Step 2. Either the "promise" falls under the definition of "commitment" and
Bob has unfair control in step 2, or it is not, in which case Alice has unfair
control in Step 3.