An English auction scheme in the online transaction environment

Abstract

Internet technology in the recent years has progressed with great strides, and has transcended physical boundaries to achieve a global community. It has been an efficient tool in the development of modern communication, electronic commerce, and various living applications. Under an Internet environment, a reliable and high-performing English auction scheme is presented in the research involving three parties, namely the Registration Manager, Auction Manager, and Bidder. The Registration Manager identifies and authenticates the bidder. The Auction Manager issues the bidding rights and maintains order during the auction. The proposed scheme has the following features: anonymity, traceability, no framing, unforgeability, non-repudiation, fairness, public verifiability, unlinkability among different auction rounds, linkability in a round of auction, efficiency of bidding, one-time registration, and easy revocation. Given the Internet environment, significant importance is attached to time costs in transmitting bidding data. Hence, the bulletin board method is used to enable both the registration and auction managers to declare the necessary parameters. Furthermore, the elliptic curve cryptosystem, owing to its low computational amount and small key size, is applied to the scheme. Consequently, the auction-manager server load can be effectively reduced, while simultaneously significantly increasing bidding efficiency.