An incentive model for voting based on information-hiding in P2P networks

We propose an incentive model based on information-hiding to encourage peers to vote for resources in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks. The following are key motives for our model: (1) Some trust and reputation systems have been deployed in modern P2P systems, but a lot of blank rating resources exist in these P2P systems; (2) E-commerce consumer-to-consumer (C2C) websites that adopt simple rating strategies are receiving accusations that false and useless ratings are flooded. We establish an information-hiding based RRR/RIR (resource reputation rating/reputation incentive rating) voting model, which awards or punishes voters according to their behaviors. The RRR generating algorithm and the RIR generating algorithm are presented in detail, and the information-hiding mechanism is given. Experimental results showed that the incentive RRR/RIR model can effectively encourage valid voting and prevent malicious or arbitrary voting in the P2P reputation system.