We address the question of how a third-party payer (e.g. an insurer) decides what providers to contract with. Two different mechanisms are studied and their properties compared. A first mechanism consists in the thirdparty payer setting up a bargaining procedure with both providers. The second mechanism is the so-called “any willing provider” where the third-party payer announces a contract and...

In this paper we propose an e-commerce protocol with the following features: (1) ensures true fair exchange, (2) does not require manual dispute resolution in case of unfair behavior by any party, (3) does not require the active involvement of a trusted third party, (4) allows the customer to verify that the product he is about to receive is the one he is paying for, and (5) can be used for the...

Trust is playing an important role in communications and transactions. Based on different reasons of trust, different trusted domains, possibly disjoint, are formed in mobile communications, preventing complete systems from working properly. What is lacked therein is a bridge that can link domains, across trust gaps to establish a complete trusted mobile communication system. In this paper, the...

The optimal decision for an agent to make at a given game situation often depends on the decisions that other agents make at the same time. Rational agents will try to find a stable equilibrium before taking an action. Rational agents can use the negotiation mechanism to reach the equilibrium. In the previous work, we proposed the communication actions of paying guarantee or compensation to con...

A Note on Handling Information Known to the Opinion Preparer A Note on Handling Excluded Opinions § 9:1 The Three-Set Opinion Pattern § 9:2 Identifying and Defining the Party Whose Status Is at Issue A Note on Entity Formation § 9:3 Opinions as to Entity Status A Note on the Significance of Status Opinions § 9:3.1 Incorporated Status, Organization, and Valid Existence [A] Incorporation [B] Orga...

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Today, most smartphones feature different kinds of secure hardware, such as processor-based security extensions (e.g., TrustZone) and dedicated secure co-processors (e.g., SIM-cards or embedded secure elements). Unfortunately, secure hardware is almost never utilized by commercial third party apps, although their usage would drastically improve security of security critical apps. The reasons ar...