Multiparty Contract Signing Over a Reliable Network

Most contract signing protocols make use of a trusted third party (TTP) to ensure fairness. It has been shown that in the crash network model, this is inevitable. However, for stronger networks, where misbehavior is allowed but failure excluded, the necessity of a TTP has not yet been debated. We consider a strong network model, that includes reliable broadcast, bounded delays and timestamps and use it to describe a simple multiparty contract signing protocol that does not rely on a TTP. This shows that by strengthening the assumptions on the network, the transfer of trust from one dedicated server to the network is feasible. The result is commented in a more general setting of multiparty protocols and problems. The correctness of the proposed protocol for any number of participants is proven using process algebra techniques.