Trust structures - Denotational and operational semantics
A general formal model for trust in dynamic networks is presented. The model is based on the trust structures of Carbone, Nielsen and Sassone: a domain theoretic generalisation of Weeks' framework for credential based trust management systems, e. g., KeyNote and SPKI. Collections of mutually referring trust policies ( so-called "webs" of trust) are given a precise meaning in terms of an abstract domain-theoretic semantics. A complementary concrete operational semantics is provided using the well-known I/O-automaton model. The operational semantics is proved to adhere to the abstract semantics, effectively providing a distributed algorithm allowing principals to compute the meaning of a "web" of trust policies. Several techniques allowing sound and efficient distributed approximation of the abstract semantics are presented and proved correct.
trust structures denotational and operational semantics trust management foundations i/o automata