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

Kelsey, John

doi:https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-04762-7_9

Conference Proceedings

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

Documentation Topics

Published: November 26, 2018

Author(s)

John Kelsey (NIST)

Conference

Name: 4th International Conference on Research in Security Standardisation (SSR 2018)
Dates: November 26-27, 2018
Location: Darmstadt, Germany
Citation: Security Standardisation Research, Lecture Notes in Computer Science vol. 11322, pp. 164-184

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.

Keywords

randomness; public randomness; cryptography; trusted third party

Control Families

None selected

Documentation

Publication:
Conference Proceedings (DOI)

Supplemental Material:
Preprint (pdf)

Document History:
11/26/18: Conference Proceedings (Final)

Topics

Security and Privacy
random number generation