On secure orders in the presence of faults

We present specifications and provably-secure protocol, for fully automated resolution of disputes between a provider of digital goods and services, and its customers. Disputes may involve the timely receipt of orders and goods, due to communication failures and malicious faults, as well as disputes on the fitness of the goods to the order. Our design is a part of a layered architecture for secure e-commerce applications [1], with precise yet general-purpose interfaces, agreements and validation functions (e.g. automatically resolving disputes on quality or fitness of goods). The modular design of the protocol and specifications, allows usage as an underlying service to different e-commerce, e-banking and other distributed systems. Our protocol operates efficiently, reliably and securely under realistic failure and delay conditions.