An evidential model of distributed reputation management

Abstract

For agents to function effectively in large and open networks, they must ensure that their correspondents, i.e., the agents they interact with, are trustworthy. Since no central authorities may exist, the only way agents can find trustworthy correspondents is by collaborating with others to identify those whose past behavior has been untrustworthy. In other words, finding trustworthy correspondents reduces to the problem of distributed reputation management.Our approach adapts the mathematical theory of evidence to represent and propagate the ratings that agents give to their correspondents. When evaluating the trustworthiness of a correspondent, an agent combines its local evidence (based on direct prior interactions with the correspondent) with the testimonies of other agents regarding the same correspondent. We experimentally studied this approach to establish that some important properties of trust are captured by it.