Electronic contract signing allows two potentially dis-trustful parties to digitally sign an electronic document “simultaneously” across a network. Existing solutions for electronic contract signing either require the involvement of a trusted third party (TTP), or are complex and expensive in communication and computation. In this paper we propose an electronic contract signing protocol between...

We propose distributed decryption schemes for somewhat homomorphic encryption (SHE). The proposed schemes are constructed based on the encryption scheme by Brakerski and Vaikuntanathan. In SHE, homomorphic multiplication increases the number of elements in a ciphertext. The proposed scheme can decrypt a ciphertext containing more than two elements with k out of N parties. The distributed decryp...

In his article “A Defense of Unqualified Medical Confidentiality,” Kipnis provides a persuasive argument as to why maintaining unqualified confidentiality is the most effective way of preventing harm to third parties in the health-care setting (Kipnis 2006). However, difficulties emerge when it is applied to the field of clinical genetics. The familial context of clinical genetics means that ro...

Often, when several norms are present and may be in conflict, individuals will display a self-serving bias, privileging the norm that best serves their interests. Xiao and Bicchieri (J Econ Psychol 31(3):456–470, 2010) tested the effects of inequality on reciprocating behavior in trust games and showed that—when inequality increases—reciprocity loses its appeal. They hypothesized that self-serv...

New business models have come up in different contexts such as the Internet and Telecommunications networks which have been grouped under the umbrella of the buzzword 2.0. They propose the opening up of service platforms in order to increase profits by means of innovative collaboration agreements with third parties. In this paper we go a step further and propose a business model for Telecommuni...

Privacy in cloud computing is at the moment simply a promise to be kept by the software service providers. Users are neither able to control the disclosure of personal data to third parties nor to check if the software service providers have followed the agreed-upon privacy policy. Therefore, disclosure of the users‘ data to the software service providers of the cloud raises privacy risks. In t...

This article examines whether a principal prefers to hire a fair or a selfish agent. A fair agent cares to some extent for the well-being of other people and thus he also cares for the principal. Therefore, if the agent performs solitary work, the principal is always better off to hire a fair agent. However, we show that when a third party with conflicting interests is introduced, it may be adv...

Online social networks typically provide tools for users to set who can access their shared data. However, this access restriction only applies to network users and not for third parties and the social network itself. An approach only with data encryption is insufficient to keep both data privacy and the user's ability to obtain personalized services. This paper presents a model to extend the p...