Classification of trust in peer-to-peer (P2P) communication

Trust plays a pivotal role in any peer-to-peer interaction because trust based decisions of which peer to interact with and which peer not to interact with can lessen the probability of interacting, with a malicious peer. Peer-to-Peer systems can be used for innumerable applications.In fact, some major companies like SUN and Intel have begun to adopt P2P systems. Peer-to-Peer Systems, however, suffer from numerous shortcomings; establishing trust between the two communicating peers being one of them. Although numerous trust models have been proposed, none of them can be regarded complete in terms of semantics and concepts. This paper provides an introduction to the concept of trust and emphasizes the role of trust in the security establishing mechanisms. It examines why some of the security establishing infrastructures cannot be used to establish trust between two communicating peers in P2P communication. It then presents a definition of trust and the various trust relationships in P2P communications. A classification of trust in P2P communication is proposed along with the rules for representing trust.