acknowledgment of receipt
A confirmation of receipt is a short written proof that you have received a product , a letter or a message in general.
Examples
A registered mail can be ordered with acknowledgment of receipt, so that the sender receives an acknowledgment of receipt signed by the recipient.
The German right of service knows service against acknowledgment of receipt , for example for service to lawyers (Section 174 ZPO ).
For several years, many are delivery services with palmtop equipped Computer?, On the display of the receiver directly his signature guaranteed.
There are also acknowledgments of receipt in e-mails , see Message Disposition Notification .
Receipt problem
The receipt problem is a hitherto unsolved problem in computer science and information security . The aim is to generate an acknowledgment of receipt that does not depend on the goodwill of the message recipient. It has been shown for all known types of acknowledgments that they can be forged or prevented or that they require the help of an independent third party. Today's attempted solutions are often undertaken using cryptology .
background
The sender often needs to be able to prove that the recipient has received a message or goods. The classic signed acknowledgment of receipt fulfills this purpose when the communication partners cooperate. However, it fails if the recipient tries to manipulate the process. The (also electronic ) signature of the confirmation of receipt is a suitable means against forgery of the confirmation by the original sender . The misappropriation of the confirmation by the original sender (claim: the recipient has not confirmed) can be countered by the original recipient requesting an acknowledgment of receipt in order to receive the confirmation of receipt. This only shifts the problem one place.
The basic problem is that the recipient of a message can receive it and conceal this fact or can claim the opposite. In practice, independent third parties are therefore called in as witnesses or, in certain cases , it is assumed that the message or goods have been received.
The solution using cryptography opposes the problem in that the cryptographic keys must be under the control of their owner. To ensure the authenticity of the receipt, it must be signed by the original recipient. In principle, this cannot be done by anyone other than the key holder. The key holder can therefore refuse to generate the confirmation of receipt.
See also
- Delivery Status Notification (DSN), an acknowledgment of receipt that a mail server can create (on request)
- Message Disposition Notification (MDN), an acknowledgment of receipt for e-mails sent by the recipient
