Trusted communications between untrusting parties
AssigneeDennis Dupray
InventorsDennis J. Dupray, Sheldon F. Goldberg
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Abstract
A system and method is disclosed for assuring that networked communications between parties playing a game on a network (e.g., the Internet) are not tampered with by either of the parties for illicitly gaining an advantage over the other party. An initial sequence of tokens (e.g., card representations) for playing the game are doubly encrypted using an encryption key from each of the parties. Accordingly, during play of the game neither party can modify the initial sequence of game tokens during the game. At termination of the game, at least one of the parties can fully decrypt the initial sequence of tokens, and thereby, if desired, compare the played token sequence with the corresponding the initial token sequence.
Claims17
A method for restricting access to information communicated between parties, comprising:
- first encoding of the information for obtaining a corresponding first encoded version of the information;
- second encoding said first encoded version for obtaining a corresponding second encoded version of the information;
- wherein one of said first and second steps of encoding results in said corresponding version being substantially restricted from a first party decoding the information encoded therein without having access to a first decoding data;
- wherein another of said first and second steps of encoding results in said corresponding version being substantially restricted from a second party decoding the information therein without having access to a second decoding data;
- first providing, to the second party, said second encoded version;
- subsequently, performing a predetermined activity between the first and second parties using an instance of the information, wherein the second party does not have access to said second decoding data but has access to at least portions of the information;
- subsequently, second providing to the second party said second decoding data;
- wherein the second party decodes the second encoded version using the second decoding data, and then decodes the first encoded version using the first decoding data.
The method as claimed in claim 9, wherein at least one of said steps of first and second encoding includes encrypting the information using a secret key.
The method of claim 15, wherein said step of obtaining includes downloading said decoder from an Internet website.
A method for restricting access to information communicated between parties, comprising:
- first encoding of the information for obtaining a corresponding first encoded version of the information;
- second encoding of said first encoded version for obtaining a corresponding second encoded version of the information;
- wherein one of said first and second steps of encoding results in said corresponding version being substantially restricted from a first party manipulating the information encoded therein without having access to a first decoding data;
- wherein another of said first and second steps of encoding results in said corresponding version being substantially restricted from a second party determining the information therein without having access to a second decoding data;
- first providing, to the second party, said second encoded version;
- subsequently, performing a predetermined activity between the first and second parties using an instance of the information, wherein the second party does not have access to said second decoding data but has access to at least portions of the information;
- subsequently, second providing to the second party said second decoding data;
- wherein the second party decodes the second encoded version using the second decoding data, and then decodes the first encoded version using the first decoding data.
A method for verifying network communications between parties participating in one of a game and contest, comprising:
- activating an instance of an activity between at least a first party and a second party using transmissions on the communications network, wherein said activity is one of a contest and a game;
- first transmitting between a third party and at least one of the first and second parties a first version of activity related data for participating in said instance via communications on the network;
- second transmitting, via the communications network, one or more portions of a second version of said data to said second party from one of said first party and said third party prior to a termination of the instance, wherein said first and second versions are expected to be identical by at least one of the first party and the second party;
- requesting, via the communications network, by at least one of the first and second parties, that the third party verify that said first and second versions are identical.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.