Analysis of Feedbacks and Ratings on Trust Merit for Peer-to-Peer Systems

In peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, peers often must interact with unknown or unfamiliar peers without the benefit of trusted third authorities to mediate the interactions. A peer will need reputation mechanisms by self-experiencing and incorporating the knowledge of other peers to decide whether to trust another peer in P2P systems. On the basis of introduction on the trust properties and common problems in P2P systems, this paper discusses the trust merits on both the feedback-only methods (direct) and the ratings (indirect). In the direct way, we propose the credibility to cope with some malicious attacks such as colluding and white-washing. The two metrics of the global trust merit and the complete trust metric are given. Further researches are also outlined.