Building Trust in Ad Hoc Distributed Resource-Sharing Networks Using Reputation-Based Systems

This paper provides an overview of reputation-based approaches aiming to enhance trusted functionality in ad hoc distributed resource-sharing networks. More specifically, it focuses on three essential functions, namely, secure routing, secure resource management and trusted service composition. We first note the necessity to use reputation and trust to establish safe and efficient collaboration in such networks and present the state-of-the-art for those three functions. Several reputation and trust metrics for protecting against malicious and selfish participants are investigated. Attacks on the evaluation process of reputation and trust are considered and more robust metrics are proposed. Both general and function specific issues are investigated and a declaration of the different requirements for those functions is provided.