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The New Randomness Beacon Format Standard: An Exercise in Limiting the Power of a Trusted Third Party

Published

Author(s)

John M. Kelsey

Abstract

We discuss the development of a new format for beacons-- servers which provide a sequence of digitally signed and hash-chained public random numbers on a fixed schedule. Users of beacons rely on the trustworthiness of the beacon operators. We consider several possible attacks on the users by the beacon operators, and discuss defenses against those attacks that have been incorporated into the new beacon format. We then analyze and quantify the effectiveness of those defenses.
Volume
11322
Conference Dates
November 26-27, 2018
Conference Location
Darmstadt
Conference Title
SSR 2018: Security Standardisation Research

Keywords

Randomness, Public Randomness, Cryptography, Trusted Third Party

Citation

Kelsey, J. (2018), The New Randomness Beacon Format Standard: An Exercise in Limiting the Power of a Trusted Third Party, SSR 2018: Security Standardisation Research, Darmstadt, -1, [online], https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04762-7_9 (Accessed October 14, 2025)

Issues

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Created November 27, 2018, Updated February 8, 2019
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