%0 Conference Paper %B Workshop on Economics of Peer-to-Peer Systems %D 2004 %T A game-theoretic framework for analyzing trust-inference protocols %A Morselli,R. %A Katz, Jonathan %A Bhattacharjee, Bobby %X We propose a novel game-theoretic framework foranalyzing the robustness of trust-inference protocols in the presence of adversarial (but rational) users. To the best of our knowledge, this is the first such framework which simultaneously (1) admits a rigor- ous and precise definition, thereby enabling formal proofs of security (in various adversarial settings) for specific trust-inference protocols; (2) is flexible enough to accommodate a full range of (realistic) ad- versarial behavior and network models; and (3) is ap- propriate for decentralized networks, and in particu- lar does not posit a trusted, centralized party with complete knowledge of the system history. We also show some preliminary results regarding the design of trust-inference protocols which can be rigorously proven secure within our model. In addition to establishing a solid foundation for future work, our framework also enables a rigorous and objective comparison among existing trust inference protocols. %B Workshop on Economics of Peer-to-Peer Systems %8 2004/// %G eng