A dynamic trust model based on feedback control mechanism for P2P applications

Trust is critical in P2P online communities. The traditional trust and reputation mechanisms lack flexibility in modeling the diversity and dynarnicity of trust in such environment. In this paper, we try to evaluate trust with the introduction of servomechanism and propose DWTrust: a trust model based on dynamic weights for P2P applications. DWTrust adopts a novel feedback control mechanism to realize the assessment of trust in which a set of subjective weights are set and adjusted in time to reflect the dynamicity of trust environment. Trust assessment is simplified by mapping the factors influencing trust to feedbacks on dynamic weights. A series of experiments are designed to demonstrate the effectiveness, benefit and adaptability of DWTrust.