Blockchain-Based Distributed Trust and Reputation Management Systems: A Survey

Distributed Ledger Technologies (DLTs), like Blockchain, are characterized by features such as transparency, traceability, and security by design. These features make the adoption of Blockchain attractive to enhance information security, privacy, and trustworthiness in very different contexts. This paper provides a comprehensive survey and aims at analyzing and assessing the use of Blockchain in the context of Distributed Trust and Reputation Management Systems (DTRMS). The analysis includes academic research as well as initiatives undertaken in the business domain. The paper defines two taxonomies for both Blockchain and DTRMS and applies a Formal Concept Analysis. Such an approach allowed us to identify the most recurrent and stable features in the current scientific landscape and several important implications among the two taxonomies. The results of the analysis have revealed significant trends and emerging practices in the current implementations that have been distilled into recommendations to guide Blockchain’s adoption in DTRMS systems.

[1]  Ernesto Damiani,et al.  Blockchain-Based E-Vote-as-a-Service , 2019, 2019 IEEE 12th International Conference on Cloud Computing (CLOUD).

[2]  Paul Resnick,et al.  Reputation systems , 2000, CACM.

[3]  R. Zeckhauser,et al.  Trust, Risk and Betrayal , 2003 .

[4]  Leslie Lamport,et al.  The Byzantine Generals Problem , 1982, TOPL.

[5]  Pavel Tvrdík,et al.  Clondike: Linux cluster of non-dedicated workstations , 2005, CCGrid 2005. IEEE International Symposium on Cluster Computing and the Grid, 2005..

[6]  Lionel Brunie,et al.  Trust management and reputation systems in mobile participatory sensing applications: A survey , 2015, Comput. Networks.

[7]  Martin Štava,et al.  Overlapping Non-dedicated Clusters Architecture , 2009, 2009 International Conference on Computer Engineering and Technology.

[8]  Nils Urbach,et al.  Don't slip on the ICO - a Taxonomy for a Blockchain-Enabled Form of Crowdfunding , 2018, ECIS.

[9]  Björn Scheuermann,et al.  Bitcoin and Beyond: A Technical Survey on Decentralized Digital Currencies , 2016, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[10]  Kris Bubendorfer,et al.  Reputation systems: A survey and taxonomy , 2015, J. Parallel Distributed Comput..

[11]  Audun Jøsang,et al.  A survey of trust and reputation systems for online service provision , 2007, Decis. Support Syst..

[12]  Zibin Zheng,et al.  An Overview of Blockchain Technology: Architecture, Consensus, and Future Trends , 2017, 2017 IEEE International Congress on Big Data (BigData Congress).

[13]  John Domingue,et al.  The Blockchain and Kudos: A Distributed System for Educational Record, Reputation and Reward , 2016, EC-TEL.

[14]  Ernesto Damiani,et al.  A reputation-based approach for choosing reliable resources in peer-to-peer networks , 2002, CCS '02.

[15]  Emmanuelle Anceaume,et al.  Efficient Distributed Privacy-Preserving Reputation Mechanism Handling Non-Monotonic Ratings , 2015 .

[16]  Matthew Buechler.  Decentralized Reputation System for Transaction Networks , 2015 .

[17]  Elisa Bertino,et al.  Preserving privacy of feedback providers in decentralized reputation systems , 2012, Comput. Secur..

[18]  Lea Kutvonen,et al.  Reputation Management Survey , 2007, The Second International Conference on Availability, Reliability and Security (ARES'07).

[19]  Antonio F. Gómez-Skarmeta,et al.  TACS, a Trust Model for P2P Networks , 2009, Wirel. Pers. Commun..

[20]  Miguel Oom Temudo de Castro,et al.  Practical Byzantine fault tolerance , 1999, OSDI '99.

[21]  Hector Garcia-Molina,et al.  Taxonomy of trust: Categorizing P2P reputation systems , 2006, Comput. Networks.

[22]  V.,et al.  Blockchain technology for robot swarms : A shared knowledge and reputation management system for collective estimation , 2018 .

[23]  Aldo Franco Dragoni,et al.  Reputation Management in Multi-Agent Systems Using Permissioned Blockchain Technology , 2018, 2018 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Conference on Web Intelligence (WI).

[24]  G. Antes,et al.  Five Steps to Conducting a Systematic Review , 2003, Journal of the Royal Society of Medicine.

[25]  Gary E. Bolton,et al.  How Effective are Online Reputation Mechanisms? An Experimental Study , 2004, Manag. Sci..

[26]  Tiago M. Fernández-Caramés,et al.  A Review on the Use of Blockchain for the Internet of Things , 2018, IEEE Access.

[27]  Kai Hwang,et al.  Collusive Piracy Prevention in P2P Content Delivery Networks , 2009, IEEE Transactions on Computers.

[28]  Zibin Zheng,et al.  Blockchain challenges and opportunities: a survey , 2018, Int. J. Web Grid Serv..

[29]  Cesare Pautasso,et al.  A Taxonomy of Blockchain-Based Systems for Architecture Design , 2017, 2017 IEEE International Conference on Software Architecture (ICSA).

[30]  José Manuel Moya,et al.  A Taxonomy of Trust and Reputation System Attacks , 2012, 2012 IEEE 11th International Conference on Trust, Security and Privacy in Computing and Communications.

[31]  Andreas Reuter,et al.  Principles of transaction-oriented database recovery , 1983, CSUR.

[32]  Franco Pirri,et al.  Enhancing IoT Data Dependability through a Blockchain Mirror Model , 2019, Future Internet.

[33]  Audun Jøsang,et al.  Simulating the Effect of Reputation Systems on E-markets , 2003, iTrust.

[34]  Claus Pahl,et al.  A Review of Distributed Ledger Technologies , 2018, OTM Conferences.

[35]  Michael Devetsikiotis,et al.  Blockchains and Smart Contracts for the Internet of Things , 2016, IEEE Access.

[36]  Tassos Dimitriou,et al.  Multi-Party Trust Computation in Decentralized Environments , 2012, 2012 5th International Conference on New Technologies, Mobility and Security (NTMS).

[37]  Victor C. M. Leung,et al.  Blockchain-Based Decentralized Trust Management in Vehicular Networks , 2019, IEEE Internet of Things Journal.

[38]  Joseph A. Konstan,et al.  Trust in Cyberspace , 2002 .

[39]  Max Mühlhäuser,et al.  Towards Secure Distributed Trust Management on a Global Scale: An analytical approach for applying Distributed Ledgers for authorization in the IoT , 2018, IoT S&P@SIGCOMM.

[40]  Nick Szabo,et al.  Formalizing and Securing Relationships on Public Networks , 1997, First Monday.

[41]  Christian Cachin,et al.  Distributing trust on the Internet , 2001, 2001 International Conference on Dependable Systems and Networks.

[42]  Ilya Sergey,et al.  A Concurrent Perspective on Smart Contracts , 2017, Financial Cryptography Workshops.

[43]  A. Jøsang,et al.  Challenges for Robust Trust and Reputation Systems , 2009 .

[44]  S. Streufert.  Trust. A Mechanism for the Reduction of Social Complexity , 1968 .

[45]  Gareth Owen,et al.  Rep on the block: A next generation reputation system based on the blockchain , 2015, 2015 10th International Conference for Internet Technology and Secured Transactions (ICITST).

[46]  Shlomi Dolev,et al.  Efficient private multi-party computations of trust in the presence of curious and malicious users , 2014, Journal of Trust Management.

[47]  Marko Vukolic,et al.  XFT: Practical Fault Tolerance beyond Crashes , 2015, OSDI.

[48]  Rudolf Wille,et al.  Restructuring Lattice Theory: An Approach Based on Hierarchies of Concepts , 2009, ICFCA.

[49]  Sakshi Srivastava,et al.  A Survey on Reputation and Trust Management in Wireless Sensor Network , 2012 .

[50]  Chunyan Miao,et al.  A Survey of Multi-Agent Trust Management Systems , 2013, IEEE Access.

[51]  John K. Ousterhout,et al.  In Search of an Understandable Consensus Algorithm , 2014, USENIX ATC.

[52]  David R. Karger,et al.  Chord: A scalable peer-to-peer lookup service for internet applications , 2001, SIGCOMM '01.

[53]  Jeffrey S. Rosenschein,et al.  Supporting Privacy in Decentralized Additive Reputation Systems , 2004, iTrust.

[54]  Davide Carboni.  Feedback based Reputation on top of the Bitcoin Blockchain , 2015, ArXiv.

[55]  Claus Pahl,et al.  Trustworthy Orchestration of Container Based Edge Computing Using Permissioned Blockchain , 2018, 2018 Fifth International Conference on Internet of Things: Systems, Management and Security.

[56]  Maurice Herlihy,et al.  Blockchains from a distributed computing perspective , 2019, Commun. ACM.

[57]  Raouf Boutaba,et al.  Peer-to-peer's most wanted: Malicious peers , 2006, Comput. Networks.

[58]  Nancy A. Lynch,et al.  Impossibility of distributed consensus with one faulty process , 1983, PODS '83.

[59]  Satoshi Nakamoto.  Bitcoin : A Peer-to-Peer Electronic Cash System , 2009 .

[60]  Gang Qu,et al.  BARS: A Blockchain-Based Anonymous Reputation System for Trust Management in VANETs , 2018, 2018 17th IEEE International Conference On Trust, Security And Privacy In Computing And Communications/ 12th IEEE International Conference On Big Data Science And Engineering (TrustCom/BigDataSE).

[61]  John R. Douceur,et al.  The Sybil Attack , 2002, IPTPS.

[62]  Jean-Luc Baril,et al.  Blockchain based trust & authentication for decentralized sensor networks , 2017, ArXiv.

[63]  A. Poelstra.  Distributed Consensus from Proof of Stake is Impossible , 2015 .

[64]  Marcel Morisse,et al.  Cryptocurrencies and Bitcoin: Charting the Research Landscape , 2015, AMCIS.

[65]  Massimo Bartoletti,et al.  A Survey of Attacks on Ethereum Smart Contracts (SoK) , 2017, POST.

[66]  Emmanuelle Anceaume,et al.  A privacy preserving distributed reputation mechanism , 2013, 2013 IEEE International Conference on Communications (ICC).

[67]  Jean-Philippe Martin,et al.  Fast Byzantine Consensus , 2006, IEEE Transactions on Dependable and Secure Computing.

[68]  Feng Xiao,et al.  SybilLimit: A Near-Optimal Social Network Defense against Sybil Attacks , 2008, 2008 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy (sp 2008).

[69]  Yasushi Wakahara,et al.  Reputation Scoring System Using an Economic Trust Model: A Distributed Approach to Evaluate Trusted Third Parties on the Internet , 2013, 2013 27th International Conference on Advanced Information Networking and Applications Workshops.

[70]  Sooyong Park,et al.  Where Is Current Research on Blockchain Technology?—A Systematic Review , 2016, PloS one.

[71]  Isabell M. Welpe,et al.  Disrupting Industries with Blockchain: The Industry, Venture Capital Funding, and Regional Distribution of Blockchain Ventures , 2018, HICSS.

[72]  David R. Karger,et al.  Koorde: A Simple Degree-Optimal Distributed Hash Table , 2003, IPTPS.

[73]  Lik Mui,et al.  Notions of reputation in multi-agents systems: a review , 2002, AAMAS '02.

[74]  Ralph C. Merkle,et al.  Protocols for Public Key Cryptosystems , 1980, 1980 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy.

[75]  Ramakrishna Kotla,et al.  Zyzzyva , 2007, SOSP.

[76]  Raouf Boutaba,et al.  Reputation-Based Trust Management in Peer-to-Peer Systems: Taxonomy and Anatomy , 2010 .

[77]  Cristina Nita-Rotaru,et al.  A survey of attack and defense techniques for reputation systems , 2009, CSUR.

[78]  Shehu M. Sarkintudu,et al.  Taxonomy development of Blockchain platforms: Information systems perspectives , 2018 .

[79]  Carleen Maitland,et al.  Trust in cyberspace , 2000 .

[80]  Jeremy Clark,et al.  SoK: Research Perspectives and Challenges for Bitcoin and Cryptocurrencies , 2015, 2015 IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy.

[81]  Emanuele Bellini,et al.  NBN: IT The Italian trusted persistent identifier infrastructure , 2014, Int. J. Knowl. Learn..

[82]  Paolo Tasca,et al.  Taxonomy of Blockchain Technologies. Principles of Identification and Classification , 2017, Ledger.

[83]  Paul A. Pavlou,et al.  Evidence of the Effect of Trust Building Technology in Electronic Markets: Price Premiums and Buyer Behavior , 2002, MIS Q..

[84]  Celeste Campo,et al.  PTM: A Pervasive Trust Management Model for Dynamic Open Environments ⁄ , 2003 .

[85]  Armin Lehmann,et al.  Blockchain-Based Trust Communities for Decentralized M2M Application Services , 2018, 3PGCIC.

[86]  Jan Muntermann,et al.  A method for taxonomy development and its application in information systems , 2013, Eur. J. Inf. Syst..

[87]  Leslie Lamport,et al.  The part-time parliament , 1998, TOCS.

[88]  Nico Abbatemarco,et al.  A structured framework to assess the business application landscape of blockchain technologies , 2018, HICSS.

[89]  Mubashir Husain Rehmani,et al.  Applications of Blockchains in the Internet of Things: A Comprehensive Survey , 2019, IEEE Communications Surveys & Tutorials.

[90]  Kevin C. Almeroth,et al.  A Taxonomy to Express Open Challenges in Trust and Reputation Systems , 2012, J. Commun..

[91]  Manju John.  A Survey on Trust Management in Peer to Peer Systems , 2014 .

[92]  Michael J. Gallivan,et al.  Striking a balance between trust and control in a virtual organization: a content analysis of open source software case studies , 2001, Inf. Syst. J..

[93]  Marco Chiesa,et al.  Picking a Partner: A Fair Blockchain Based Scoring Protocol for Autonomous Systems , 2018, ANRW.

[94]  Robert H. Deng,et al.  CrowdBC: A Blockchain-Based Decentralized Framework for Crowdsourcing , 2019, IEEE Transactions on Parallel and Distributed Systems.

[95]  Marco Tulio Zanini.  The New Economy (NE) , 2007 .

[96]  Mehmet A. Orgun,et al.  A Proof-of-Trust Consensus Protocol for Enhancing Accountability in Crowdsourcing Services , 2019, IEEE Transactions on Services Computing.

[97]  Chrysanthos Dellarocas,et al.  Mechanisms for coping with unfair ratings and discriminatory behavior in online reputation reporting systems , 2000, ICIS.

[98]  G. Suryanarayana,et al.  A Survey of Trust Management and Resource Discovery Technologies in Peer-to-Peer Applications , 2004 .

[99]  Chee-Wee Tan,et al.  Towards a Framework of Digital Platform Disruption: A Comparative Study of Centralized & Decentralized Digital Payment Providers , 2014 .

[100]  Emin Gün Sirer,et al.  Bitcoin-NG: A Scalable Blockchain Protocol , 2015, NSDI.

[101]  Franz Baader,et al.  Applying Formal Concept Analysis to Description Logics , 2004, ICFCA.

[102]  Stefano Russo,et al.  Trust Management in Fog/Edge Computing by Means of Blockchain Technologies , 2018, 2018 IEEE International Conference on Internet of Things (iThings) and IEEE Green Computing and Communications (GreenCom) and IEEE Cyber, Physical and Social Computing (CPSCom) and IEEE Smart Data (SmartData).

[103]  Emanuele Bellini,et al.  A blockchain based Trusted Persistent Identifier system for Big Data in Science , 2019, Foundations of Computing and Decision Sciences.

[104]  Jordi Herrera-Joancomartí,et al.  Reputation and Reward: Two Sides of the Same Bitcoin , 2016, Sensors.

[105]  Lionel Brunie,et al.  A Trustless Privacy-Preserving Reputation System , 2016, SEC.

[106]  Konstantinos Limniotis,et al.  Blockchain Solutions for Forensic Evidence Preservation in IoT Environments , 2019, 2019 IEEE Conference on Network Softwarization (NetSoft).

[107]  Nicholas R. Jennings,et al.  An integrated trust and reputation model for open multi-agent systems , 2006, Autonomous Agents and Multi-Agent Systems.

[108]  Stefan Dziembowski,et al.  Proofs of Space , 2015, CRYPTO.

[109]  Diego Gambetta.  Can We Trust Trust , 2000 .

[110]  Pavel Tvrdík,et al.  Blockchain-Based Multi-Level Scoring System for P2P Clusters , 2017, 2017 46th International Conference on Parallel Processing Workshops (ICPPW).

[111]  Jonas Poelmans,et al.  Formal Concept Analysis in knowledge processing: A survey on models and techniques , 2013, Expert Syst. Appl..

[112]  Ali Sunyaev,et al.  From Hype to Reality: A Taxonomy of Blockchain Applications , 2019, HICSS.

[113]  Ingoo Han,et al.  The Effect of On-Line Consumer Reviews on Consumer Purchasing Intention: The Moderating Role of Involvement , 2007, Int. J. Electron. Commer..