Credence (reputation management scheme)
Credence is a distributed object reputation management scheme that counteracts content pollution in peer-to-peer filesharing systems. Credence papers were published in February 2005 by Kevin Walsh and Emin Gün Sirer.
After downloading a file, a user of a Credence enabled system is given a chance to submit a single vote, either a positive (thumbs-up) vote for content matching its description or a negative (thumbs-down) vote for pollution. Votes are cryptographically signed.
Votes of other users are gathered to find like-minded users and users of the direct opposite. When a user asks for votes on a file, the votes of the like-minded are counted as positive and the votes of the opposite are negated. The quality of voting results that a user receives depends on the user's own contributions. For example, a user giving intentially bad votes will in turn receive bad results, while a user who doesn't vote at all will get no results.
Implementations
- simulator used in testing
- limewire add-on