An active trust model based on zero knowledge proofs for airborne networks

• Authors: Kamesh Namuduri
• Venue: Proceedings of the 5th Annual Workshop on Cyber Security and Information Intelligence Research: Cyber Security and Information Intelligence Challenges and Strategies
• Year: 2009

Trust is a fundamental concept that enables cooperation and collaboration among the nodes in any network. Formal trust models are necessary for sharing information in a collaborative environment. Trust assessment methods that are commonly used in network applications or in social networks passively gather information about other nodes and take significant amount of time for assessing trust. Such models are not convenient for applications such as tactical airborne networks which are typically deployed for short durations of time. This paper presents an active trust model in which the nodes in a network proactively probe other nodes to assess their level of trust before sharing mission specific information. Active trust models are useful for assessing trust within short durations of time making them appropriate for airborne networks. The proposed model is based on zero-knowledge proofs.