Handbook of Financial Cryptography and Security

The Handbook of Financial Cryptography and Security elucidates the theory and techniques of cryptography and illustrates how to establish and maintain security under the framework of financial cryptography. It applies various cryptographic techniques to auctions, electronic voting, micropayment systems, digital rights, financial portfolios, routing networks, and more.

In the first part, the book examines blind signatures and other important cryptographic techniques with respect to digital cash/e-cash. It also looks at the role of cryptography in auctions and voting, describes properties that can be required of systems implementing value exchange, and presents methods by which selected receivers can decrypt signals sent out to everyone.

The second section begins with a discussion on lowering transaction costs of settling payments so that commerce can occur at the sub-penny level. The book then addresses the challenge of a system solution for the protection of intellectual property, before presenting an application of cryptography to financial exchanges and markets.

Exploring financial cryptography in the real world, the third part discusses the often-complex issues of phishing, privacy and anonymity, and protecting the identity of objects and users.

With a focus on human factors, the final section considers whether systems will elicit or encourage the desired behavior of the participants of the system. It also explains how the law and regulations impact financial cryptography.

In the real world, smart and adaptive adversaries employ all types of means to circumvent inconvenient security restraints. This useful handbook provides answers to general questions about the field of financial cryptography as well as solutions to specific real-world security problems.

Burton Rosenberg is an associate professor of computer science at the University of Miami in Coral Gables, Florida.