Visible to the public Efficient Public Verification of Confidential Supply-Chain Transactions

TitleEfficient Public Verification of Confidential Supply-Chain Transactions
Publication TypeConference Paper
Year of Publication2022
AuthorsBecher, Kilian, Schäfer, Mirko, Schropfer, Axel, Strufe, Thorsten
Conference Name2022 IEEE Conference on Communications and Network Security (CNS)
Keywordsdistributed ledger, Distributed Ledger Technology, homomorphic encryption, Network security, Pressing, Production, Protocols, Proxy re-encryption, pubcrawl, resilience, Resiliency, secret sharing, Sociology, supply chain security, Supply chains, supply-chain verification
AbstractEnsuring sustainable sourcing of crude materials and production of goods is a pressing problem in consideration of the growing world population and rapid climate change. Supply-chain traceability systems based on distributed ledgers can help to enforce sustainability policies like production limits. We propose two mutually independent distributed-ledger-based protocols that enable public verifiability of policy compliance. They are designed for different supply-chain scenarios and use different privacy-enhancing technologies in order to protect confidential supply-chain data: secret sharing and homomorphic encryption. The protocols can be added to existing supply-chain traceability solutions with minor effort. They ensure confidentiality of transaction details and offer public verifiability of producers' compliance, enabling institutions and even end consumers to evaluate sustainability of supply chains. Through extensive theoretical and empirical evaluation, we show that both protocols perform verification for lifelike supply-chain scenarios in perfectly practical time.
DOI10.1109/CNS56114.2022.9947231
Citation Keybecher_efficient_2022