Modeling the relationship between trust and risk in cyberspace

In this paper, we develop analytical models to calibrate trust and distrust in cyberspace as a function of risk. Trust and distrust are viewed as economic gains and losses, while risk represents adverse influencing factors such as privacy loss or virus attacks. The models are constructive and reflect the behaviors often used by people when they attempt to intrinsically calculate whether to trust or distrust cyberspace activities such as on-line banking or on-line shopping under available information on different subjective and objective risk conditions. The analytical models, although simplified, are able to capture the tacit and inherent human behaviors attributed to the user’s perception of risk and trust, as well as represent the economic utility derived from cyberspace. Sample distributions of the trust and distrust as functions risk are derived.