185
Chapter 11
Electronic Procurement Systems
ABSTRACT
As elements that constitute electronic procurement systems, anonymous auction, object delivery, and
object monitoring systems are developed based on ITLs, anonymous tags and anonymous memories,
respectively. The developed anonymous auction system enables entities to securely sell and/or buy their
articles without disclosing their identities, and the anonymous object delivery system enables them to
send or receive their articles to or from other entities also without disclosing their identities. The object
monitoring system monitors running states of objects (e.g. home appliances) so that they can be used
efficiently, safely, and environmentally friendlily while preserving privacies of their users. It also detects
dishonest users (e.g. that discords their objects illegitimately) without invading privacies of honest users. Here, anonymous memories used in the monitoring system are memory sections by which users can
securely and efficiently maintain their data without disclosing their identities.
INTRODUCTION
In this chapter, auction, object delivery and object
monitoring systems are developed as components
of electronic procurement (e-procurement) systems, in which people connected by networks sell
or buy articles, transportation service providers
deliver articles to their buyers, and monitoring
stations remotely monitor running states of articles
such as home appliances to enable individual
users to use them efficiently, safely, and environmentally friendlily. Here, although this kind of
e-procurement systems not only make our societies efficient, convenient and safe but also enable
effective and efficient recycling of products and
materials, to encourage more people to accept these
systems, privacies of individual sellers, buyers
or users involved must be preserved. Therefore,
anonymous e-procurement systems supported
by security and service components discussed in
Section 2 play important roles.
DOI: 10.4018/978-1-4666-1649-3.ch011
Copyright © 2012, IGI Global. Copying or distributing in print or electronic forms without written permission of IGI Global is prohibited.
Electronic Procurement Systems
Figure 1 depicts the overall configuration of
the anonymous e-procurement system (Tamura,
2008). In the figure, participants sell or buy articles
to or from other participants, and among the participants, some of them sell or buy articles without
disclosing their identities and in these cases payments are carried out through anonymous credit
card systems discussed in the previous chapter,
but some others (e.g. established manufacturers)
sell or buy articles while disclosing their exact
identities. Here, an anonymous auction mechanism is one of schemes in which people sell and
buy articles without disclosing their identities.
Then once articles are bought by buyers, buyers
e.g. auction winners, receive articles through
anonymous object delivery systems from sellers
(they may be also anonymous) without disclosing
their identities, and monitoring stations monitor
running states of articles such as home appliances
while preserving privacies of their owners or users.
When monitoring stations detect that the articles
are used inadequately they warn the anonymous
users of the dangers, or when the articles are
discarded illegitimately they identify the liable
users without invading any privacy of other users.
ANONYMOUS AUCTION SYSTEMS
Although there are many kinds of auction protocols
this section discusses 2 of them i.e. English and
Vickrey auction schemes (Yokoo, 2006). Both
English and Vickrey auction schemes consist
of sellers S1, S2, ---, SM, buyers B1, B2, ---, BN,
auctioneer A and BBs (bulletin boards) as shown
in Figure 2. In the figure, each seller Sj brings its
article to auctioneer A, A conducts auctions, in
which buyers B1, B2, ---, BN bid prices to buy the
article brought by Sj, and auction results and if necessary states of the auction processes are disclosed
in BBs. Here, when auctions are anonymous each
Bh can make bids and pay for its winning articles
without disclosing its identity to others including
auctioneer A and seller Sj that had brought the
article. Also, each seller Sj can bring its articles
and be paid for them while concealing its identity
from others. Here, anonymous networks enable
sellers and buyers to access the auction system
without disclosing their identities, anonymous
credit card systems enable anonymous buyers and
sellers to conduct their payment processes, and
anonymous object delivery systems enable sellers
and buyers to bring their owning articles and to
Figure 1. Configuration of anonymous e-procurement system
186
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