A reputation-based trust management system for P2P networks

The open and anonymous nature of a P2P network makes it an ideal medium for attackers to spread malicious content. In this paper we describe a reputation-based trust management protocol for P2P networks where users rate the reliability of parties they deal with, and share this information with their peers. The protocol helps establish trust among good peers as well as identifying the malicious ones. Results of various simulation experiments show that the proposed system can be highly effective in preventing the spread of malicious content in P2P networks.