Partial identities as a foundation for trust and reputation

This paper explores the relationships between the hard security concepts of identity and privacy on the one hand, and the soft security concepts of trust and reputation on the other hand. We specifically focus on two vulnerabilities that current trust and reputation systems have: the change of identity and multiple identities problems. As a result, we provide a privacy preserving solution to these vulnerabilities which integrates the explored relationships among identity, privacy, trust and reputation. We also provide a prototype of our solution to these vulnerabilities and an application scenario.

► We formalize partial identities and their relationship to trust and reputation. ► We define the partial identity unlinkability problem (PIUP). ► We propose a solution to PIUP which takes into account privacy concerns. ► We describe our implemented prototype to validate our solution to PIUP.