A Reputation System for Self-Organizing Storage

Reputation systems have demonstrated their interest in stimulating cooperation in peer-to-peer (P2P) systems, even though they are susceptible to collusion and bashing. In addition, computing reputation generally relies on a partial assessment of the behavior of peers only, which might delay the detection of selfish peers. This situation is rendered even worse in self-organized storage applications, since storage is not an instantaneous operation and data are vulnerable throughout their entire storage lifetime. This paper introduces a local reputation system for P2P storage in which peer observations are carried out through the periodic verification of a proof of data possession, and which in addition addresses the aforementioned issues of reputation systems. Index Terms Trust establishment, reputation, peer-to-peer, cooperation