Efficient Implementation and Computational Analysis of Privacy-Preserving Auction Protocols

Abstract

Auctions are a key economic mechanism for establishing the value of goods that have an uncertain price. Nowadays, as a consequence of the ubiquitous emergence of technology, auctions can reach consumers, and as a result, drive market prices on a global scale. Collection of private information such as losing bids exposes more information than desired. In fact, the leaked information can be analyzed to provide auctioneers or competitors with advantages on future transactions. Therefore, the need to preserve privacy has become a critical concern to reach an accepted level of fairness and to provide market participants with an environment in which they can bid true valuations. This paper focuses on constructions of sealed-bid auctions based on cryptographic protocols. Instead of solely focusing on theoretical aspects of sealed-bid auctions, this paper dives into implementation details and demonstrates communication and computational analysis and how different settings affect performance.