Secure E-Tendering Using Identity Based Encryption From Bilinear Pairings

An electronic tender system (e-tender) streamlines the tender process and thereby saves time and cost. Security requirements for e-tendering systems have not been closely scrutinized in the paper. In addition to the security concerns of conventional e-tender systems - authentication, integrity, privacy, and non-repudiation are provided. This paper identifies key issues to be addressed in the design of secure e-tendering systems. Key issues are the privacy protection and verifiability. A new e-tendering architecture, based on Identity Based Encryption from bilinear pairings is proposed which may be suitable for secure large scale operations.