Evaluating trustworthiness through monitoring: The foot, the horse and the elephant

Abstract

This paper presents a framework for trust evaluation through monitoring, in particular, to address the question of how to derive trust from observations of certain properties. We propose a trust model based on subjective logic to represent trust through the notion of an opinion and to include aspects of uncertainty in a systematic fashion. Moreover, we analyze requirements for opinion generators and introduce novel parameterized generators that capture the requirements for opinion generators much better than current generators do. In addition, we show how a decision can be made based on trust monitoring within a certain context. The proposed trust evaluation framework is demonstrated with a case study of a Body Area Sensor Network. The results and examples show that the opinion generators can effectively work with various types of properties, including dependability, security and functionality related properties. © 2014 Springer International Publishing.