A Flexible Multi-Criteria Trust Model for P2P Networks

The simplicity, low cost, preserving anonymity, and availability of peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, especially with the advent of file-sharing networks, make them a favorite architecture for users. To reach this infrastructure, there are some challenges that must be addressed. One of the most important challenges is providing service security and trust. But due to the properties of P2P networks, it is difficult and complicated to design and implement a trust system. Some of the trust systems consider only one criterion to evaluate trust; it´s simple but not so effective and has restricted applications. On the other side, considering multi-criteria is more effective but needs a systematic way to combine them. In this paper we introduce a novel reputation-based trust model using analytic hierarchy process (AHP) which gives flexibility and extensibility to our multi-criteria trust system and addresses the mentioned problem. We show that the model is significantly effective for P2P networks. Besides we also demonstrate that there is a need for such systems in considering the multi-criteria nature of trust for P2P networks.