Bit Commitment Protocol Demonstration

This is a demonstration and explanation of a protocol for a cryptographic task called Bit Commitment. The protocol, due to Claude Crépeau, uses the properties of noisy channels, which occur often in real situations.

There are three main parts to this document:

Background

Here you will find everything you need to understand the protocol. This is where you should start.

Protocol demonstration

This is a Java-animated explanation and demonstration of the protocol. We also explain why the protocol is secure.
Users of Netscape 3.0.x beware! A wierd bug in this version of Netscape causes it to crash when a page contains several applets. Turn off Java before going here if you are using this (out of date) version of Netscape!

Bibliography

References to relevant litterature and to other web sites of interest

Last updated 26 August 1997 by Adam Smith.