Credible recommendation exchange mechanism for P2P reputation systems
Eleni Koutrouli, Aphrodite Tsalgatidou · 2013
The value of Reputation Systems has been widely recognized for P2P and other distributed applications. This value depends on how credible reputation systems can be, as they face a lot of attacks and various types of misbehavior. Recommendation free riding and badmouthing are two of the most important problems in reputation systems. Incentives constitute an important tool for alleviating such problems. We propose a credit-based recommendation exchange mechanism which provides incentives for honest participation in the reputation system. Our mechanism uses payments for recommendations, which depend on the trustworthiness of peers regarding the recommendations they give. No currency is circulated in the network. Peers have accounts, which are credited or debited according to recommendation transfers, while payment values are defined according to the recommendation trustworthiness of peers. We analyze the proposed payment scheme and provide simulation results to validate our analysis. We also discuss ways of secure recommendation exchange and related challenges.