An auditable metering scheme for web advertisement applications

Abstract

This paper proposes a cryptographic scheme for meteringthe duration and/or the number of instances of running a process. Thisscheme has the following property: knowing a secret, one can validate apiece of metering evidence in constant units of time while without thesecret the job of generating a valid piece of evidence requires time indicatedby the evidence. Because the scheme utilises a well-known computationalcomplexity problem, the meter based on it can be implementedin software yet is tamper-resistant.We will address the use of this scheme in building an auditable meteringscheme for finding the popularity of web sites. The scheme is suitable forrapidly increasing web advertisement applications. We will also discussthe related security issues.