Distribution chain security

Abstract

Digital content distribution systems will enable business models in the near future that cannot be predicted today. In this paper, we identify a new security problem that can be crucial to this enablement. The problem arises from the conflicting privacy and integrity goals of middlemen in digital distribution chains. Our solution is a novel system design that incorporates obfuscated digital contracts, semi-trusted contract certifiers, and zero-knowledge proofs of arithmetic relations. Our implementation and timing experiments demonstrate that our solution is practical and efficient.