Fair Exchange

Fairness is a broad concept, covering a range of qualificatio ns such as impartiality, courtesy, equity, sportsmanship, etc. Here, we focus on fai r ess in exchanging (electronic) goods, stipulating that none of the partners can tak e an undue advantage over the other. When is an interaction between two or more people calle d fair? Let us proceed with a few examples which reflect fairness as it is understood in the security literature. Our examples, as the cryptographic tradition goes, are scen arios involving Alice and Bob. To learn more about these people see [Gor05].