EAR Protocol-Towards Fair Optimistic Non-Repudiation Exchange

Fairness is of crucial importance for the exchange protocols via Internet. Non-repudiation therefore becomes one of the vital premises, which are essential in the exchange of sensitive and important messages. This paper is to propose a new exchange protocol, termed Exchange Protocol as it consists of three sub-protocols: Exchange sub-protocol, Abort sub-protocol and Recovery sub-protocol. It is to be argued that the incorporation of these three sub-protocols may effectively enables EAR to assure non-repudiation, strong fairness, timeliness, confidentiality and the minimized involvement of the Trusted Third Party (TTP).