Social certificates and trust negotiation

When participating in online communities and ad hoc interactions, peer trust is based on societal relationships where identity alone is typically insufficient. We propose a new method for automatic establishment of peer trust that is suitable for peer-topeer and ad-hoc networking applications which overcomes the shortcomings of existing approaches. This method includes a new type of property-based certificate which we call a Social Certificate, and a new approach for trust negotiation in which privacy is assured by isolating the negotiation using a Secure Trust Negotiation Agent. Each Secure agent acts as the negotiator for its peer, upholding the peer's trust negotiation policies while keeping shared information secret. We describe these new methods and the security technology underpinning the Secure Trust Negotiation Agent.