Trust-based exchange of services to motivate cooperation in P2P networks

Abstract

In this paper we propose a trust-based exchange framework to motivate cooperation among peers of different consumption, contribution and service evaluation profiles. Our framework consists of distributed resource allocation and server selection policies based on local reputation vectors. We present how proposed policies outperform previous work and lead to the autonomic formation of coalitions between peers who mutually profit by exchanging their services. In this way the utilities of all peers progressively improve without pre-existing knowledge of one another's service evaluation and capability profiles. Peers' coalitions are dynamically reformatted, adapting to network changes, e.g., when new peers enter the system or peers vary their profiles. Only misbehaving (non contributive) peers cannot benefit by our framework, which efficiently blocks misbehavior.