Project No.: 5003-045293 01.07.96 - 31.12.99

Project leader: Prof. Ueli Maurer, Institut für Theoretische Informatik, Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich (ETHZ)
e-mail: maurer@inf.ethz.ch

Name of project: Secure cooperation in distributed systems

Partners: Prof. Hans-Peter Frei, UBS UBILAB, Zurich

Funding: Sfr 819,183.-

Summary:
The emphasis in the "Secure cooperation in distributed systems" project is, precisely, on secure cooperation in a distributed environment between partners who cannot trust each another because they do not know each another. This is a subject which is coming steadily to the fore, especially in the light of recent applications of information exchange (Internet, distributed databases, electronic payment systems, etc.). One project application lies in developing a new pattern of permissioning and access to information distributed among several independent databases.

The goals of the project are:

• to define an adequate model covering the various aspects of secure cooperation;
• to examine the role of trust;
• to design and implement cryptographic protocols for secure cooperation.

The proposed implementation comprises a demonstrator on the Internet for a selected scenario.

The first step was to establish some fundamental findings on secure cooperation, formulate various protocols and set up a voting system demonstrator. The project will now push ahead with acquiring a deeper understanding of mechanisms and models for secure cooperation in the same area of work by proposing concrete, practicable protocols for the solution of particular problems and expanding the distributed-voting demonstrator into a practicable prototype for real voting.

Cooperation:
The present project is an integrated research project of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology at Zurich (ETHZ) and the United Bank of Switzerland’s UBILAB (UBS Information Technology Laboratory). The ETHZ research team for information security and cryptography has contacts with the public and private sectors ranging from research partnerships to consultancy assignments. UBILAB has long been researching cryptographic solutions to enhance the security of business and financial systems.