Analysis of Digital Knapsack Based Sealed Bid Auction
This work addresses security challenges in online auctions for participants and sellers, but it is incremental as it builds on existing knapsack-based protocols.
The paper analyzes a sealed-bid auction protocol based on the knapsack problem, identifying limitations such as tie detection, malicious behavior, and price selection, and proposes solutions to address these issues.
The need of totally secure online auction has led to the invention of many auction protocols. But as new attacks are developed, auction protocols also require corresponding strengthening. We analyze the auction protocol based on the well-known mathematical public-key knapsack problem for the design of asymmetric public-key knapsack trapdoor cryptosystem. Even though the knapsack system is not cryptographically secure, it can be used in certain auction situations. We describe the limitations of the protocol like detecting and solving the tie between bidders, malicious behavior of participants and also selection of price set by the seller and offer solutions.