Page 253 - Trust in ICT 2017

Trust in ICT 5

From the perspectives of standardization, trust should be quantitatively and/or qualitatively calculated and
measured, which is used to evaluate values of physical components, value-chains among multiple
stakeholders, and human behaviours including decision making. Trust is an important factor on the decision-
making process not only used by humans but also by application and service transactions in ICT
environments. Therefore, trust has been highlighted to evaluate the functional capabilities of ICT resources,
as well as the ICT services and applications.
When a trustor and a trustee make trust relationships, both the trustor and the trustee have their own
characteristics so-called trust propensity and trustworthiness, respectively [b-Mayer]. Trust propensity (i.e.,
characteristic of the trustor) is a trait that leads to a generalized expectation about the trustworthiness of
others. Trustworthiness (i.e., characteristic of the trustee) refers to a property that can be trusted and relied
upon the trustee.
In general, a trustor considers three main sources of information when seeking for trust as own
understanding about a trustee (as knowledge), personal expertise about the situation and the context (as
experience), and public evidences on the trustee (as reputation). Knowledge can be characterized as direct
trustworthiness attributes. It is measured from the primary data which are available to the trustor at first
hand even before any meaningful communication would happened. On the other hand, experience and
reputation information can be reflected as indirect trustworthiness attributes which are estimated basically
from secondary data, often available after at least one interaction with each other.

7.1.1 Direct trust
Figure 2 shows various trustworthiness attributes that are categorized into three major factors: ability,
integrity, and benevolence [b-Mayer, b-Colquitt]. Many attributes can represent trustworthiness, which can
be applied to ICT infrastructures and services.
– Ability (or capability): Ability means characteristics that enable an entity to have influence within
some specific contexts. The ability is specific because the trustee may be highly competent in some
technical area, affording that person is trusted on tasks related to that specific area. The attributes
related to ability include robustness, safety, stability, scalability, and reliability, etc.
– Integrity (or honesty): Integrity means the quality of being honest and fair in the social world or
means the state of being complete in cyber and physical worlds. In terms of information, integrity
means that information of an object is prevented from being modified; in other words, information
consistency by assuring that information will not be accidentally or maliciously altered or destroyed.
The attributes related to integrity include completeness, consistency, accuracy, certainty, and
recency, etc.
– Benevolence (or cooperation): Benevolence means the desire to do well to others, in other words,
working or acting together willingly for a common purpose or benefit when trustor has an
interaction with trustee. Benevolence is also the extent to which a trustee is believed to do good to
the trustor, aside from an egocentric profit motive. The attributes related to benevolence include
availability, assurance, relevance, and credibility, etc.

NOTE – Appendix II provides detailed information about trustworthiness attributes.

245