[Cryptography] Proposal of a fair contract signing protocol

[mok-kong shen]

Am 29.06.2016 um 18:03 schrieb Ron Garret:
>
> On Jun 29, 2016, at 7:40 AM, Sidney Markowitz <sidney at sidney.com> wrote:
>
>> mok-kong shen wrote on 29/06/16 11:53 PM:
>>> [I hope that the following more carefully/clearly formulated revised
>>> version of my OP should render the underlying idea of mine
>>> understandable and more easily seen to be correct.]
>>
>> Well, at least you have made it clear that it is different than the Two
>> Generals problem, so we can't simply say that what you are trying to do has
>> been proven impossible that way. The Two Generals problem says (roughly) that
>> it is impossible for two parties to unequivocally come to an agreement over an
>> unreliable channel. Your protocol is allowed to time out without any contract
>> coming into effect if it takes too long, so that is not an issue.
>
> It is true that this problem is different than the 2G problem.  However, coming up with a proof of impossibility of fair commitment protocols without an RTP (even with reliable communications) is a pretty elementary exercise.  I even exhibited such a proof on this list.  Here it is again, with elaboration:
>
> Theorem: fair commitment protocols using only interleaved actions by the participants (i.e. without a trusted third party) are not possible, even with reliable communications
>
> Let’s start with some definitions:
>
> An agent A is COMMITTED to some action C with respect to a contractual counter-party B if there exists an action or sequence of actions S that B can take following A’s failure to perform C by some deadline that results in negative consequences for A.  The canonical example would be B suing A for failing to perform C.  Note that it is not necessary that B actually perform S for a commitment to exist on the part of A.  B might elect not to sue A for failure to perform C, but that doe not vitiate A's commitment.
>
> A FAIR CONTRACT is a contract that commits A to performing an action CA and B to performing an action CB with the property that there is no period of time where A is committed to CA while B is not committed to CB.  A FAIR PROTOCOL is a protocol that produces a fair contract.  INTERLEAVED ACTIONS are a set of actions with the property that 1) every action is performed by either A or B, and 2) no two actions occur simultaneously (and hence they have a total order with respect to time).
>
> We now proceed with the proof by reductio: assume that a fair protocol exists.  Then there is some key action K with the property that performing K results in the simultaneous commitment of A to CA and B to CB.  Assume without loss of generality that K is performed by A.  Then B is committed to CB after K, i.e. after K, if B does not perform CB then there exists an action S that A can take that results in negative consequences to B.
>
> Now consider the situation before K.  In this situation, A can produce negative consequences for B by performing K followed by S.  Therefore, by the definition of commitment, B is committed to CB before K.  This contradicts our assumption that B was not committed to CB before K.  QED.

Would you please, instead of arguing based on your own stuffs, refer
to my recently revised scheme and clearly point out the location or
locations in it where what I wrote is your opinion wrong/impossible?

M. K. Shen