A new efficient optimistic fair exchange protocol without random oracles

Optimistic fair exchange (OFE) is a kind of protocols to solve the problem of fair exchange between two parties. Most of the previous work on this topic are provably secure in the random oracle model. In this work, we propose a new construction of OFE from another cryptographic primitive, called time capsule signature. The construction is efficient and brings almost no overhead other than the primitive itself. The security of our new construction is based on that of the underlying primitive without relying on the random oracle heuristic. Applying our generic construction to the time capsule signature scheme recently proposed by Libert and Quisquater, we obtain a new concrete and efficient OFE construction secure based on Computational Diffie-Hellman assumption in the standard model. © 2011 Springer-Verlag.