Patent ID: 8756658

Claim:
An authentication method, comprising: receiving, at a first node, a request for a service from a second node, the request for the service including a communication history of the second node, the first node and the second node each including a computing device; determining one or more other communication nodes belonging to the communication history of the second node; transmitting, to the one or more other nodes, a request for evaluation of the second node; receiving, from the one or more other nodes, an evaluation of the second node in response to the request for evaluation, the evaluation based on the one or more other nodes' prior experience with the second node; determining whether to authenticate the second node based on the evaluation received from the one or more other nodes, the determining whether to authenticate including: calculating a global trust degree (T j ) of the second node as a weighted average of evaluations of the second node by the one or more other communication nodes; calculating a relative trust degree (NBRT ij ) based on the global trust degree (T j ) and a similarity of the first node and the second node (sim (ij)), the relative trust degree (NBRT ij ) being based on the formula NBRT ij = { 0 ( T j <= 0 ) sim ⁡ ( i , j ) ⁢ × ⁢ T j ( T j > 0 ) ; and comparing the relative trust degree to a predetermined threshold; and providing the service to the second node when the determining whether to authenticate indicates that the second node is authenticated.