Assessing trust in uncertain information using Bayesian Description Logics

Abstract

Decision makers (humans or software agents alike) are faced with the challenge of examining large volumes of information originating from heterogeneous sources with the goal of ascertaining trust in various pieces of information. In this paper we argue (using examples) that traditional trust models are limited in their data model by assuming a pair-wise numeric rating between two entities (e.g., eBay recommendations, Netflix movie rating, etc). We present a novel trust computational model for rich, complex and uncertain information encoded using Bayesian Description Logics. We present security and scalability tradeoffs that arise in the new model, and the results of an evaluation of the first prototype implementation under a variety attack scenarios.