Identity Support in a Security and Trust Service for Ad Hoc M-commerce Trading Systems

Ad hoc m-commerce is an emerging way of conducting online trading wirelessly within dynamic network communities. However, participants in such systems are vulnerable to attacks on identity establishment such as spoofing and whitewashing as part of fraudulent and unfair trading practices. This paper presents a scheme for identity support using PGP certificates in a fully self-organised manner, where a trading pseudonym and photograph are used as identity credentials. It lets participating parties collaborate in a Peer-to-Peer (P2P) way to establish their online identity in a manner that is resistant to such attacks without any mediation of a Certification Authority (CA). It also lets participating parties handle the security settings of the trading system as well as share knowledge about fellow participants´ trading behaviour without relying on support from a network service provider.