Reputation management algorithms for DHT-based peer-to-peer environment

This paper addresses the problem of integration of reputation management mechanisms into data lookup and routing processes to cope with some specific security problems in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks based on Distributed Hash Tables (DHT). The goal is to find a mode for ‘‘good” peers to cooperate in order to withstand malicious activity of single malevolent peers and their collusions as well. We start from consideration of individual instruments for reputation evaluation that every single peer should be provided with to autonomously define the level of its own trust towards others. We also propose a possible scenario of integration of some existing reputation management techniques and routing mechanisms in a P2P network based on the popular Kademlia algorithm. Then, we present an interaction algorithm that allows peers to obtain the global trust value for each single node through exchanging opinions in the form of local trust values independently calculated by every peer with other members of the community. Such collaboration between peers is indispensable to cope with malicious activity of inconsistent nature specific to DHT-based environment. To render the algorithm resilient to the presence of malicious participants we propose to apply solutions for Byzantine Agreement to exchange opinions among peers. We also provide mathematical evaluations concerning the complexity and computational costs of the proposed algorithm that evidence apparent improvements over the previous one.