Swift trust in a virtual temporary system: A model based on the Dempster-Shafer theory of belief functions

Trust- and reputation-based information security has been attracting global interest and attention in various disciplines. Despite the achievements of the past several decades, there is still a long way to go before the mechanism of trust and reputation is thoroughly mastered. Swift trust is playing an increasingly important role in virtual temporary systems but has not been analyzed in any depth, and the idea of applying swift trust to the study of temporary systems in virtual societies is still novel. Based on the Dempster-Shafer theory of belief functions, a swift trust model is proposed in which the mechanism of swift trust is realized by way of layered reasoning, which is superior to the typical trust reasoning. The model puts forward a trust-transfer mechanism and clustering mechanism to achieve a whole swift trust value. The reliability of swift trust in developing and maintaining temporary systems is discussed, together with the reliability of the swift trust values derived from the proposed approach. Experiments show good consistency with the results obtained by the model.