A contract is a nonrepudiable agreement on a given contract text, i.e., a contract can be used to prove agreement between the signatories to any verifier. A contract signing scheme [4] is used to fairly compute a contract such that, even if one of the signatories misbehaves, either both or none of the signatories obtain a contract. Contract signing generalizes fair exchange of signatures: a contract signing protocol does not need to output signatures but can define its own format instead. Contract signing can be categorized by the properties of fair exchange (like abuse-freeness) as well as the properties of the nonrepudiation tokens it produces (like third-party time stamping of the contract). Unlike agreement protocols, contract signing needs to provide a nonrepudiable proof that an agreement has been reached.
Early contract signing protocols were either based on an in-line Trusted Third Party [8], gradual exchange of secrets [5], or gradual increase of privilege [3]. Like fair...
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Schunter, M. (2005). Contract Signing. In: van Tilborg, H.C.A. (eds) Encyclopedia of Cryptography and Security. Springer, Boston, MA . https://doi.org/10.1007/0-387-23483-7_76
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