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Randomized protocols for signing contracts, certified mail, and flipping a coin are presented. The protocols use a 1-out-of-2 oblivious transfer subprotocol which is axiomatically defined. The l-out-of-2 oblivious transfer allows one party to transfer exactly one secret, out of two recognizable secrets to his counterpart. The first (second) secret is received with probability one half while the sender is ignorant of which secret has been received. An implementation of the 1-out-of-2 oblivious transfer, using any public key cryptosystem, is presented. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article describes a research on distributing trust among a group of nodes. Central to this effort is a toolkit of group communication protocols called Rampart. The Rampart group communication protocols are designed to distribute trust among a group of nodes in a distributed system so while individual nodes need not be fully trusted, the group can be. An overarching goal of computer security mechanisms is to limit the extent to which each component of a system must be trusted to implement a desired security policy. This goal leads to system designs in which components are labeled trusted or untrusted. Rampant supports distributed process groups, a programming paradigm shown to simply construction of distributed programs tolerant of simple failures. Rampart has been adapted for two notable applications: sealed-bid auctions and cryptographic key management. Initial experiences with the system indicate that it can greatly simplify the task of distributing trust among multiple nodes in a system, and that it performs sufficiently well to support a wide range of applications.

The article focuses on an addressing system called IP address and relates it with the privacy of personal computers. A proposal to improve the way information flows across the Internet has caused worries for privacy advocates that the design could be used to trace a person's identity. The proposal, an addressing system called IPv6, was created by the Internet Engineering Task Force, an international standards body, and would include a unique serial number for each computer's network connection as part of its expanded new IP address. Critics warn that, if adopted, the move could strip the anonymity and security of Internet users over traditional phone lines, allowing commercial sites to correlate these embedded serial numbers against a consumer's name, address, and other personal details, from clothing size to political affiliation. Today, most home computers are assigned a different IP address each time they connect. According to a lawyer of Washington-based Electronic Privacy Information Center, Marc Rotenberg, although IPv6 would not be widely used for years, there is no doubt there are serious privacy concerns.