From:        Jorma Stenman <jore@icon.fi>
To:          lea.kutvonen@cs.helsinki.fi
Subject:     Tiivistelmä AHJ-seminaarin aiheesta
Date:        Sun, 30 Jan 2000 20:05:45 +0200 (EET)

1. What is trust?

What does trust mean in general and in the field of electronic
commerce in specific? Rea96a and Rea96b cite and explain three
different definitions for the word "trust" from the Oxford English
Dictionary. Those definitions are to be further elaborated here. Also,
trust and reputation algorithms are explained. The very good
definitions of the concepts of this field appearing in AAS99 must be
included in this first chapter.

Rea96a http://www.firstmonday.dk/issues/issue2/markets/
Rea96b http://web.mit.edu/reagle/www/commerce/thesis/thesis.html

2. Trust management tools

2.1 Trust instruments

There are different financial instruments that have been used in
non-electronic commerce for ages. Now digital tools are starting to
emerge, offering capabilities mostly equivalent to and sometimes
surpassing those of the existing tools. This chapter presents the
pros, cons, and applicability of some of the new tools, and compares
them to their existing conterparts.

2.2 Trust protocols 

There are specific protocols that lay out the rules of applying the
instruments of trust of the previous section over networks. This
section explains what those protocols are and covers more throughly
some of them, for example, digital security deposits and coin ripping.


2.3 How to use the tools?

This section is about policy issues. What kinds of things are
appropriate to be policed? Who should set and enforce policies in
Internet based commerce?


3. A practical approach to trust

As the previous chapters were at a more abstract level, this chapter
attepmts to be more specific by showing an implementable trust
framework based on the use of trusted intermediaries. The information
in this chapter mostly comes from AAS99 and KGM95. Also some
references to general Corba literature may appear. 

3.1 The structure of an e-commerce transaction

This section explains the composition of an e-commerce transaction:
searching for and negotiating with business partners, trusted path
establishement, execution and post monitoring.

3.2 Trust management techniques in an e-commerce transaction

This section covers techniques used in the phases of the last section.
AAS99 contributed an algorithm for finding the minimum length trust
chain in the first phase of a transaction. KGM95 described methods for
determining the feasibility of a particular exchange once the
principals of the exchange have discovered each other, and for making
some previously non-feasible exchanges possible. Also, the automation
of exchange sequence generation through the graph reduction technique
of KGM95 is covered. The Corba based implementation of the trust
service provider network of AAS99 is show as a functioning example.

AAS99 "A CORBA based Framework for Trusted E-Commerce Transactions",
Arshad, Atif, Siyal, 1999.

KGM95 "Making Trust Explicit in Distributed Commerce Transactions",
Ketchpel, Garcia-Molina, 1995.