Date attachable electronic cash

Abstract

In this paper we propose a new untraceable electronic cash scheme which makes it possible for a payer to attach the desired date to his electronic cash during a transaction. With the aid of the date attachability property, the date on which an electronic cash is deposited in the bank cannot be forged in an electronic cash scheme. It is conducive to the unforgeability of the number of days for which the cash has been stored in the bank for some necessary purposes such as interest calculation. Our scheme not only keeps the attached date from being forged but also avoids two or more different dates being attached to the same electronic cash. Furthermore, the date attachment does not affect the untraceability property of electronic cash. Comparing with typical electronic cash schemes, the extra computation required for date attachment is just hashing. (C) 2000 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.