Apparatus and method for protecting privacy while revealing data

An article of manufacture, comprising:

• a machine-readable medium having stored thereon instructions to:
• post a question, wherein data is revealed without a requirement of a trusted third party;
• post a plurality of public key in response to the question, where a product of the public keys matches a value given as part of the question, and where a private key corresponds to one of the public keys;
• encrypt a message with one of the public keys;
• send the encrypted message;
• and
• if the encrypted message was encrypted with the public key with the corresponding private key, then decrypt the encrypted message.

An apparatus for protecting privacy, while revealing data, the apparatus comprising:

• means for posting a question, wherein the data is revealed without a requirement of a trusted third party;
• coupled to the means for posting a question, means for posting a plurality of public key in response to the question, where a product of the public keys matches a value given as part of the question, and where a private key corresponds to one of the public keys;
• coupled to the means for posting the plurality of public keys, means for encrypting a message with one of the public keys;
• coupled to the encrypting means, means for sending the encrypted message;
• and
• coupled to the sending means, means for decrypting the encrypted message, if the encrypted message was encrypted with the public key with the corresponding private key.