A Framework to Provide Anonymity in Reputation Systems
H. Miranda and L. Rodrigues.
Proceedings of the 3rd Annual International Conference on Mobile and
Ubiquitous Systems: Networks and Services (MOBIQUITOUS 2006). San
Jose, California, July 2006. (Research-in-Progress Paper)
Abstract
In ubiquitous networks, the multiple devices carried by an user may
unintentionally expose information about her habits or preferences.
This information leakage can compromise the users' right to privacy.
A common approach to increase privacy is to hide the user real
identity under a pseudonym. Unfortunately, pseudonyms may interfere
with the reputation systems that are often used to assert the
reliability of the information provided by the participants in the
network.
This paper presents a framework for combining anonymity with
reputation and shows that it can be configured to provide a desired
degree of balance between these two conflicting goals. The proposed
solution leverages on well-known cryptographic techniques, such as
public key infrastructure and blind signatures.
Also available extended report (pdf) .
Luís Rodrigues