Page 52 - Trust in ICT 2017

1 Trust in ICT

6.2.5.1.1 Social Patterns

Exchange is a central and traditional object within the social sciences, notably in economics science where
market exchange analyses circulation of goods and services between agents (exchange is trust regulated,
that is to say mostly unknown individuals are implicated), thus in sociology and in anthropology where the
key concept is social exchange, which gathers all kinds of non-economics exchange between individuals.
Social patterns may be distinguishing themselves on two strongly differentiating variables.

In one hand, the social distance that separates two individuals: this social distance can be loose in the case
of a market or an organization (this is the reason why the contract - commercial or labour - is so important
to support exchange between unknowns). Or, at the opposite, this distance can be strong as often in the case
of the family (included friends, neighbours, and other kind of strong social bonds and where exchange is gift-
regulated) and network (as a community of individuals that share something like a life experience, an interest
in something, etc.) where familiarity, real or virtual, allows individuals to exchange without contracts. On the
other hand, the degree of structure of the institution defines the degree of liberty of which the actors can
dispose in order to exchange (notably the choice of the partner and the nature of exchanged things). This
degree can be loose, as in a network or a market where individuals have all latitude to choose themselves
and to exchange what they want to or strong as in a family or an organization/institution where exchange is
more constrained by formal hierarchies and rules.
• Family: a community with a strong social distance and a strong degree of structure.
• Network: a community with a strong social distance and a loose degree of structure.
• Market: a community with a loose social distance and a loose degree of structure.
• Organization: a community with a strong social distance and a loose degree of structure, as a
company.

6.2.5.1.2 The Lifespan of Elements of Reputation and Recommendation
In an environment where exists neither a central regulating entity nor authorizing accreditations or the
revocation of objects, a fair assumption is let’s make the time: the data elements are automatically revoked
after their lifespans expire. A temporal semantics can easily be added to an element of reputation-related
properties if both parties agree on a creation/expiration date. This information is simply concatenated with
existent data before the signature. Nevertheless, nothing guarantees that the both entities will choose
correct values for this information: the reality may be different (dishonest devices or simply malfunction).
However there is no real benefit to cheat on these values. Indeed, each entity may filter a received element
of reputation and recommendation according to its local trust policy: an element can be rejected if its
creation date is too old, its validity period is considered to be abnormally long although being still valid or if
its lifespan is of course expired. No information having an infinite lifespan in the system is guaranteed by this
timestamp.

6.2.5.2 Reputation Boot-Strap and Incentive Policies
Basically, bootstrapping techniques is required for the new-coming entities and incentive policies for those
who have already established some history of experiences Figure 5.
It is important to initialize trust rates for new services, which have no rating history, the so-called trust
bootstrapping process. Trust bootstrapping assists the requestors in their service selection decision. Trust
bootstrapping is the initial step in trust building process. Trust bootstrapping is important for reliable
interaction with services and service providers that are new to the system.

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