The goal of our research is to enhance the functionality of distributed information systems by providing a standard service for managing trust.

uTrust (universal Trust) project is a first step on this path. The goal of uTrust is to develop a universal and formalized approach for trust management in a wide range of distributed information systems. Basing on this approach, the practical goal of the project is to provide a universal library of trust management functions.

In the future, trust management should become yet another, standard service of information security, such as authentication, authorization, privacy or integrity. For this to happen, it is necessary to define standard, universal primitives of trust management.

Existing approaches for managing trust are often tied to particular domains, too complex to compute or based on arbitrary assumptions. We will propose models of trust that will be:

• supported by formal analysis;
• computationally efficient;
• universal (applicable to a wide range of distributed information systems).

Currently, trust management models are almost impossible to compare, as the methodologies, the approaches or the outcomes are radically different. We will propose common evaluation methods, against which different approaches can be validated. The basis of these methods will be analysis and simulation using common models of adversaries and benchmarks for trust management algorithms.

In order to validate our approach in real-world applications, we will create a library of universal trust management methods, algorithms, and protocols. The library will be developed as an Open Source project and available to the entire community for development, testing and evaluation.

The uTrust project is funded by the Polish Ministry of Science and
Higher Education under the research grant N N516 4307 33.

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Dziś otrzymałem grubą kopertę z Ministerstwa. Zawierała egzemplarze naszego wniosku, recenzje i dwa egzemplarze podpisanej umowy. Trochę to trwało, ale bardzo się cieszę, że mimo zmiany rządu nie było specjalnych opóźnień.
Zatem od dziś nasz grant rusza oficjalnie. Nie mam jeszcze potwierdzenia, ale w ciągu dwóch tygodni spodziewam się pierwszej transzy środków. Rozpoczniemy wtedy kupno serwerów.
A propos -- recenzje były bardzo pozytywne: w skali od 0 do 10 recenzenci ocenili nasz wniosek na 7, 8 i 9. Co prawda, wszyscy recenzenci uznali także, że za wiele środków jest przeznaczanych na wyjazdy konferencyjne -- udało mi się jednak te środki obronić.