Efficient proof of bid validity with untrusted verifier in homomorphic e‐auction

Abstract

Bid validity proof and verification is an efficiency bottleneck and privacy drawback in homomorphic e‐auction. The existing bid validity proof technique is inefficient and only achieves honest‐verifier zero knowledge (ZK). In this study, an efficient proof and verification technique is proposed to guarantee bid validity in homomorphic e‐auction. The new proof technique is mainly based on hash function operations and only needs a very small number of costly public key cryptographic operations. Moreover, it can handle untrusted verifiers and achieve perfect ZK. As a result, efficiency and privacy of homomorphic e‐auction applications are significantly improved. To the best of authors’ knowledge, it proof technique is the first to handle untrusted verifiers in e‐auction applications.