Informant: detecting sybils using incentives

  • Authors:
  • N. Boris Margolin;Brian N. Levine

  • Affiliations:
  • Department of Computer Science, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA;Department of Computer Science, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA

  • Venue:
  • FC'07/USEC'07 Proceedings of the 11th International Conference on Financial cryptography and 1st International conference on Usable Security
  • Year:
  • 2007

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Abstract

We propose an economic approach to Sybil attack detection. In our Informant protocol, a detective offers a reward for Sybils to reveal themselves. The detective accepts from one identity a security deposit and the name of target peer; the deposit and a reward are given to the target. We prove the optimal strategy for the informant is to play the game if and only if she is Sybil with a low opportunity cost, and the target will cooperate if and only if she is identical to the informant. Informant uses a Dutch auction to find the minimum possible reward that will reveal a Sybil attacker. Because our approach is economic, it is not limited to a specific application and does not rely on a physical device or token.