UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

A framework for decentralised trust reasoning.

Abdul-Rahman, A.; (2005) A framework for decentralised trust reasoning. Doctoral thesis , University of London. Green open access

[thumbnail of U591782.pdf] PDF
U591782.pdf

Download (10MB)

Abstract

Recent developments in the pervasiveness and mobility of computer systems in open computer networks have invalidated traditional assumptions about trust in computer communications security. In a fundamentally decentralised and open network such as the Internet, the responsibility for answering the question of whether one can trust another entity on the network now lies with the individual agent, and not a priori a decision to be governed by a central authority. Online agents represent users' digital identities. Thus, we believe that it is reasonable to explore social models of trust for secure agent communication. The thesis of this work is that it is feasible to design and formalise a dynamic model of trust for secure communications based on the properties of social trust. In showing this, we divide this work into two phases. The aim of the first is to understand the properties and dynamics of social trust and its role in computer systems. To this end, a thorough review of trust, and its supporting concept, reputation, in the social sciences was carried out. We followed this by a rigorous analysis of current trust models, comparing their properties with those of social trust. We found that current models were designed in an ad-hoc basis, with regards to trust properties. The aim of the second phase is to build a framework for trust reasoning in distributed systems. Knowledge from the previous phase is used to design and formally specify, in Z, a computational trust model. A simple model for the communication of recommendations, the recommendation protocol, is also outlined to complement the model. Finally an analysis of possible threats to the model is carried out. Elements of this work have been incorporated into Sun's JXTA framework and Ericsson Research's prototype trust model.

Type: Thesis (Doctoral)
Title: A framework for decentralised trust reasoning.
Identifier: PQ ETD:591782
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
Language: English
Additional information: Thesis digitised by ProQuest
UCL classification: UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL BEAMS > Faculty of Engineering Science > Dept of Computer Science
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1444477
Downloads since deposit
448Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item