Whistleblowing through newspapers is common. However, the whistleblower may face some problems if the anonymous whistleblowing channel, usually maintained by journalistic organizations, is not reliable. The first problem is the conflict of interest when the whistleblowing involves commercial or political partners of the journalistic organization. The second problem is that, in conflict situations, the whistleblower’s anonymity can be unduly violated. To resolve these issues, we present a blockchain-based anonymous whistleblowing service. Our approach includes a cryptographic scheme based on a ring signature to ensure the whistleblower’s anonymity and, at the same time, give him/her the possibility to prove that he/she is the author of the whistleblowing in the future. Through game theory, we model two scenarios involving anonymous whistleblowing: the first is unfavorable to the whistleblower, and the second is quite favorable. We show that the whistleblowing channel proposed here, exploring blockchain’s properties and the reliability of ring signatures, creates favorable conditions for the whistleblower to feel motivated to disclose the whistleblowing.

通过报纸举报是很常见的。但是，如果通常由新闻机构维护的匿名举报渠道不可靠，举报人可能会面临一些问题。第一个问题是当举报涉及新闻组织的商业或政治合作伙伴时的利益冲突。第二个问题是，在冲突情况下，举报人的匿名性可能会受到不当侵犯。为了解决这些问题，我们提出了一种基于区块链的匿名举报服务。我们的方法包括基于环签名的加密方案，以确保举报人的匿名性，同时让他/她有可能在未来证明他/她是举报人的作者。通过博弈论，我们模拟了两个涉及匿名举报的场景：第一个对举报人不利，第二个是相当有利的。我们表明，这里提出的举报渠道，探索区块链的属性和环签名的可靠性，为举报人感到有动力披露举报创造了有利条件。