P2P optimization: evaluation of different trust and reputation metrics

Trust and Reputation systems are proposed to optimize P2P systems by identifying and punishing malicious user behavior (e.g. freeriding, content pollution etc.). After a while, cooperation between well behaving users increases and misbehaving nodes are slowly excluded from the system. A variety of systems has been proposed by the research community, primarily differing in the ways how good or bad transactions are judged and weighted and how information from others is included in the local decision process of a single node. The student's task will be to analyze different metrics/algorithms and work out the deciding differences. Additionally the performance and stability characteristics of such systems should be investigated using simulations.

Required skills:

• Basic understanding of P2P systems
• Ability to read and understand research papers (assistance is provided)
• Programming skills to create relevant simulations (any programming language (pref. Java or C/C++)