A game theoretic model for digital identity and trust in online communities

Digital identity and trust management mechanisms play an important role on the Internet. They help users make decisions on trustworthiness of digital identities in online communities or ecommerce environments, which have significant security consequences. This work aims to contribute to construction of an analytical foundation for digital identity and trust by adopting a quantitative approach. A game theoretic model is developed to quantify community effects and other factors in trust decisions. The model captures factors such as peer pressure and personality traits. The existence and uniqueness of a Nash equilibrium solution is studied and shown for the trust game defined. In addition, synchronous and asynchronous update algorithms are shown to converge to the Nash equilibrium solution. A numerical analysis is provided for a number of scenarios that illustrate the interplay between user behavior and community effects. Categories and Subject Descriptors H.4 [Information Systems Appl...

• Type: Conference
• Year: 2010
• Where: CCS
• Authors: Tansu Alpcan, Cengiz Örencik, Albert Levi, Erkay Savas
• Keywords: CCS 2010, Digital Identity, Nash Equilibrium Solution, Security Privacy, Trust