[Cryptography] Crypto for optimistic transactions ?

[Alfie John]

On Thu, Jan 04, 2018 at 08:55:40AM -0800, Henry Baker wrote:
> As I pointed out in my previous posting, there is no "undo" for learning a
> bit of information, so it is *impossible* to truly "roll back" an optimistic
> transaction if that bit is inadvertently disclosed during the negotiation.
> 
> Is there a way to use crypto to "escrow" any knowledge gained during the
> first ("negotiation"/"gathering") phase of a transaction in such a way that if
> the transaction never commits, the knowledge is never transmitted to the
> parties to the transaction?
> 
> For example, suppose that a computer memory is optimistically asked to
> provide the contents of some memory location, but the requestor has not been
> validated.  Could the memory "seal" these contents in an envelope and store it
> in an escrow ("shadow") register, which can only be decrypted after the
> requestor has been validated?
> 
> Perhaps someone in the crypto literature has already addressed this problem?

I'm assuming that zero-knowledge proofs can help in the first part of the
protocol. Then once validated, the knowledge is revealed to the requestor.

Alfie

--
Alfie John
https://www.alfie.wtf