A Game Theoretic Model for Digital Identity and Trust in Online Communities

摘要

Digital identity and trust management mechanisms play an im portant role on the Interact. They help users make decisions on trustworthiness of digital identities in online communities or e commerce environments, which have significant security conse quences. This work aims to contribute to construction of an analyt ical foundation for digital identity and trust by adopting a quanti tative 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 num ber of scenarios that illustrate the interplay between user behavior and community effects.