Reputation Schemes for Pervasive Social Networks with Anonymity (Short Paper)

Abstract

Pervasive Social Networks of Strangers are available constantly, connecting users directly with no preexisting relationships. Such networks demand a high level of privacy, as users should be anonymous and their behaviour unlinkable. However, the anonymity of users could lead to abusive messages, spam, or fraud. A possible solution is to keep track of users' reputations, based on feedback from other users. However, the need to collate feedback on user behaviour to form reputations is at odds with the need for privacy. Anonymous and unlinkable feedback is also required, whilst multiple feedbacks given on the same item should be detected. To resolve this, we use group signatures and direct anonymous attestation, to give a reputation-based messaging scheme.