Anonymous Digital Cash

Ashok Reddy Madhu Tera

Laxminarayan Muktinutalapati (Lux)

Venkat Nagireddy

Overview
What is digital cash?

Need for anonymous digital cash

Concepts in anonymous digital cash Protocol: Dining Cryptographers protocol Achieving anonymity Illustration Practical concerns Conclusion

What Is Digital Cash?

Digital cash is a digitally signed payment message

that serves as a medium of exchange

Need for Anonymous Digital Cash

Increase in electronic surveillance by governments

and other institutions

Lack of privacy features associated with ordinary

electronic transactions

Concepts in Anonymous Digital Cash

Anonymity is chiefly concerned with
Unlinkability Untraceability

Protocol
Dining cryptographers protocol

Dining Cryptographers(2)

Model

Achieving Anonymity
Blind digital signatures
Blinding factor

Illustration
The Digital Bank would offer electronic bank

notes: messages signed using a particular private key The electronic bank notes could be authenticated using a corresponding public key The bank would also make public, a key to authenticate electronic documents sent from the bank to its customers

Illustration(2)
To withdraw a dollar from the bank, Alice

generates a note number (each note bears a different number, akin to the serial number on a bill); she chooses a 100-digit number at random Before sending the note number to the bank for signing, Alice multiplies it by a random (blinding) factor Now she signs the number with the private key corresponding to her "digital pseudonym"

Illustration(3)
After receiving the blinded note signed by the

bank, Alice divides out the blinding factor and uses the note as before The blinded note numbers are, therefore, "unconditionally untraceable"

Practical Concerns
Counterfeiting or Double-spending:
Fraudulently spending the same money more than once Remedy: Checking each note against an on-line central list when it is spent Using tamper-resistant hardware (called an "observer") Generating blinded notes that require the payer to answer a random numeric query about each note when making a payment

Practical Concerns(2)
Framing:
An attempt by a bank to fraudulently claim that a customer has double-spent the same piece of cash when the customer hasnt. Remedy: Similar to those discussed earlier

Practical Concerns(3)
Other concerns:

Theft Adaptability

Conclusion
Anonymous cash is "unconditionally untraceable"

which provides enough privacy to the user

A system (implementing anonymous digital cash)

closely resembling our current payment system will be easier for consumers to understand and adapt to

Questions?