Graphical Trust Models for Agent-Based Systems

Human interactions are founded on trust and reputation. When someone purchases an item, he or she trusts in the transaction without giving it much thought. A buyer rarely questions whether the cashier is reputable, if the transaction is safe, or what previous customers thought about the buying experience. Verifying all of these issues each time would be prohibitively expensive. The burgeoning field of computer-aided transactions needs trust models to achieve sufficient trust levels without burdensome verification costs.