Examining Metrics for Peer-to-Peer Reputation Systems

As the popularity of resource-sharing through peer-to-peer networks increases, so does the threat of agents seeking to weaken the network by propagating bad information and services. This paper presents advantages and disadvantages of resource selection techniques based on peer reputation. We evaluate the effect of limited reputation information sharing on the efficiency and load distribution of a peer-to-peer system. We also investigate the cost in efficiency of two identity models for peer-to-peer reputation systems. Our results show that, using some simple mechanisms, reputation systems can provide a factor of 20 improvement in performance over no reputation system.