A User-centric Approach to Trust Management in Wi-Fi Networks Carlos Ballester (University of Geneva), Jean-Marc Seigneur (University of Geneva), Paolo di Francesco (Level7), Valentin Moreno (FON), Rute Soﬁa (SITILabs, University Lusófona), Waldir Moreira (SITILabs, University Lusófona), Alessandro Bogliolo (University of Urbino), Nuno Martins (Caixa Mágica Software) Abstract—This technological demonstration goes over a new trust management framework which can assist in achieving secure connections in wireless networks, without necessarily implying the use of strong security associations. The demonstration is based on open-source software, and has been developed to run on OpenWRT as well as on Android. I. INTRODUCTION The EU ULOOP project [1] is investigating and imple- menting technology to overcome the limitation of today’s broadband access technologies, expanding the backbone in- frastructure by means of low-cost wireless technologies that embody a multi-operator model, i.e., a local-loop based upon what a speciﬁc community of individuals (end-users) is willing to share, backed up by speciﬁc cooperation incentives and “good behaviour” rules. This represents a paradigm shift in the Internet evolution, as the user may be in control of parts of the network, in a way that is acknowledged (or not) by Internet stakeholders. In such scenarios where several strangers are expected to interact for the sake of robust data transmission, trust is of vital importance as it establishes a way for the nodes involved in the system to communicate with each other in a safe manner, to share services and information, and above all, to form communities that assist in sustaining robust connectivity models. This technological demonstration goes over the trust man- agement framework provided in ULOOP, which has been currently developed to run both in open-source Access Points (OpenWRT) and in Android. The demo shall assist in ex- plaining how ULOOP envisions trust management to achieve security in a ﬂexible way, without necessarily implying the use of strong security associations. II. TRUST MANAGEMENT IN ULOOP In ULOOP, trust management and cooperation incentives are related to the understanding of how to deﬁne and build circles of trust on-the-ﬂy. Such circles of trust aim of sustain- ing an environment for allowing devices to share resources to support the dynamic behavior of user-centric networks. Trust management is based on reputation mechanisms able to identify end-user misbehavior and to address social aspects, e.g., the different levels of trust users may have in different communities (e.g., family, afﬁliation). In situations where the created network of trust is not enough to allow resources to be shared, ULOOP devices are able to use a cooperation incentive scheme that allows a node to gain credits in an amount directly proportional to the amount of shared resources: such credits can then be used to gain access to other resources. Hence, trust management and cooperation incentives aspects are split into three main blocks: i) Trust management; ii) Cooperation Incentives; iii) Identity management. From a ULOOP software suite perspective and as has been explained [2], there are modules which are activated if a ULOOP element plays the role of a regular node, or of a gateway. A ULOOP gateway is a role (software functionality) that reﬂects an operational behavior making a ULOOP node capable of acting as a mediator between ULOOP systems and non-ULOOP systems – the outside world. This gateway role may or may not be owned and controlled by a ULOOP user, it may also be controlled by an access operator. The key differentiating factor of the role of gateway, in contrast to a regular ULOOP node, is the operational intelligence and mediation capability. Similarly to ULOOP nodes, the ULOOP gateway functionality may reside in the user-equipment, in Access Points, or even in the access network. Hence, they exhibit a feature that is key in user-centric envi