Engineering trust based collaborations in a global computing environment

Trust management seems a promising approach for dealing with security concerns in collaborative applications in a global computing environment. However, the characteristics of this environment require a move from reliable identification to mechanisms for the recognition of entities. Furthermore, they require explicit reasoning about the risks of interactions, and a notion of uncertainty in the underlying trust model. From our experience of engineering collaborative applications in such an environment, we found that the relationship between trust and risk is a fundamental issue. In this paper, as an initial step towards an engineering approach for the development of trust based collaborative applications, we focus on the relationship between trust and risk, and explore alternative views of this relationship. We also exemplify how particular views can be exploited in two particular application scenarios. This paper builds upon our previous work in developing a general model for trust based collaborations.