Web Of Trust Research Articles

User Attitudes to Content Moderation in Web Search

Internet users highly rely on and trust web search engines, such as Google, to find relevant information online. However, scholars have documented numerous biases and inaccuracies in search outputs. To improve the quality of search results, search engines employ various content moderation practices such as interface elements informing users about potentially dangerous websites and algorithmic mechanisms for downgrading or removing low-quality search results. While the reliance of the public on web search engines and their use of moderation practices is well-established, user attitudes towards these practices have not yet been explored in detail. To address this gap, we first conducted an overview of content moderation practices used by search engines, and then surveyed a representative sample of the US adult population (N=398) to examine the levels of support for different moderation practices applied to potentially misleading and/or potentially offensive content in web search. We also analyzed the relationship between user characteristics and their support for specific moderation practices. We find that the most supported practice is informing users about potentially misleading or offensive content, and the least supported one is the complete removal of search results. More conservative users and users with lower levels of trust in web search results are more likely to be against content moderation in web search.

A Blockchain-Based Decentralized Public Key Infrastructure Using the Web of Trust

Internet applications rely on Secure Socket Layer (SSL)/Transport Security Layer (TSL) certifications to establish secure communication. However, the centralized nature of certificate authorities (CAs) poses a risk, as malicious third parties could exploit the CA to issue fake certificates to malicious web servers, potentially compromising the privacy and integrity of user data. In this paper, we demonstrate how the utilization of decentralized certificate verification with blockchain technology can effectively address and mitigate such attacks. We present a decentralized public key infrastructure (PKI) based on a distributed trust model, e.g., Web of Trust (WoT) and blockchain technologies, to overcome vulnerabilities like single points of failure and to prevent tampering with existing certificates. In addition, our infrastructure establishes a trusted key-ring network that decouples the authentication process from CAs in order to enhance secure certificate issuance and accelerate the revocation process. Furthermore, as a proof of concept, we present the implementation of our proposed system in the Ethereum blockchain, confirming that the proposed framework meets the five identified requirements. Our experimental results demonstrate the effectiveness of our proposed system in practice, albeit with additional overhead compared to conventional PKIs.

Implementing Blockchain in the Management of Organ Donation and Transplantation

Abstract: Current organ donation and transplantation systems suffer from vulnerabilities to scams and lack of transparency, hindering trust and efficiency. This proposal introduces a groundbreaking blockchain-based solution that combats both issues. By leveraging the blockchain's security and immutability, the system detects and predicts potential scams through AI analysis of realtime data, notifying authorities immediately. Additionally, it strengthens security and trust by ensuring secure participant identities, controlled access to sensitive information, and automated processes via smart contracts. This not only reduces the risk of illegal activity but also fosters fairness and participation, ultimately transforming the system into a life-saving model of transparency and trust. But that's not all. Blockchain securely stores identities, encrypts sensitive information, and automates tasks with smart contracts, eliminating the human error and shady dealings that plague the current system. This creates a web of trust, empowering donors, recipients, and medical professionals alike. The result? A system that's not just secure, but fair and efficient, saving lives and restoring faith in this vital field. It's time to transplant trust into organ donation, and blockchain is the fertile ground for its growth

Tangled Webs of Trust: A Study of Public Trust in Risk Regulation

Abstract This article provides an empirically grounded understanding of public trust in the context of risk regulation, specifically through a case study of shale gas exploration and fracking. It offers insight into the factors underpinning public trust and explores the empirical reality of the socially embedded and relational nature of trust. The article engages with the often-neglected dynamics of trust and how relationships between different levels of trust (eg institutional, interpersonal, wider system) operate. It shows how trust, far from complying with many existing linear conceptualisations, is complex and messy, involving a web of ongoing and interactive relationships within and between these levels. By mapping empirical data against our theoretical understandings, this article offers an alternative insight into the trust relationship, better positioning us to understand trust as an ongoing process, rather than an end product.

SybilPSIoT: Preventing Sybil attacks in signed social internet of things based on web of trust and smart contract

AbstractSybil attacks are a very serious challenge in social networks including, the Social Internet of Things (SIoT). This paper introduces the SybilPSIoT method, in which a hybrid prevention and detection decentralized approach is proposed in SIoT based on smart contracts. The owner adds his objects to the smart contract. However, hostile owners can create Sybil things. This paper formally presents a model that uses a signed SIoT network with objects and identifiers as network nodes and information about the type of nodes (acknowledgers). Assuming the relationship between the edge marks between nodes and the node type, the proposed method uses trust paths between verification and desired nodes using a Bayesian inference model and structural balance patterns to judge the target node in these paths. It also uses game theory to control access owners to prevent Sybil from creating new things based on a cost‐benefit function. Based on the analysis method, a validating effect proportional to the path length on the target object was presented. This method was compared with the most novel available methods; the results from this comparison depict the scalability and effectiveness of the proposed method for large networks.

RETINA: Distributed and secure trust management for smart grid applications and energy trading

The rapid adoption of smart grids demands robust security and efficiency measures due to their critical role in delivering electricity and their potential for customer-oriented benefits. This article presents an innovative framework, named RETINA, which provides a resilient and secure energy trading mechanism within smart grid systems. RETINA tackles the inherent security and infrastructure challenges in smart grids by establishing a trust-based security layer and facilitating energy transactions through blockchain technology. Our proposed solution integrates Public Key Infrastructure (PKI) and the Web of Trust (WoT) concepts, promoting decentralized communication channels and robust key management. We further introduce a smart contract-based energy trading mechanism that factors trust, distance, and energy type (green or non-green) in the cost calculation. The utility and robustness of RETINA have been validated in a virtualized testbed environment with 500 nodes, demonstrating superior performance in terms of scalability and resilience compared to the existing WoT scheme. Furthermore, RETINA successfully enables a secure and efficient energy trading scheme, promoting the use of renewable energy sources and promptly recovering from market manipulation attacks. Future enhancements will include applying it to a realistic smart grid deployment and integrating additional functionalities. This groundbreaking solution can potentially revolutionize the smart grid ecosystem, addressing its current limitations and propelling the industry toward a future of advanced and secure energy exchange.

Pengaruh Kemajuan Teknologi Informasi Terhadap Perkembangan Akuntansi

The rapid advancement in information technology has transformed the landscape of accounting, making it increasingly computerized, enhancing efficiency through the automation of routine tasks, enabling real-time access to financial data, and providing more sophisticated data analytics capabilities. However, alongside these benefits, technology also brings challenges related to data security and changing regulations, necessitating accountants to continuously develop their technological skills. Online collaboration between accountants and clients is becoming more common, reflecting the influence of information technology on the evolution of accounting practices. Technological developments also affect Accounting Information Systems (AIS), changing the way data is processed, internal controls are implemented, and financial information is prepared. Despite initial concerns, the advancement of IT ultimately opens up new opportunities, such as computer-based information system audits, computer-based information system consulting, and web trust audits. This is the essence of the impact of information technology on the development of accounting, presenting opportunities and challenges that require adaptation and a strong understanding from accounting professionals in the digital era.

Using Smart Applications in Delivering Government Services in the UAE

This study addresses the public adoption of and satisfaction with UAE government e-services, emphasizing the quality of digital platforms, mainly smart applications. This quantitative research uses the technology acceptance, e-service quality, and web trust models. An online survey designed via Survey Monkey was distributed to Emirati citizens in Sharjah, Dubai, and Abu Dhabi municipalities via government Facebook and Instagram accounts in December 2022. The sample included the Ministries of Human Resources, Education, Interior, and Foreign Affairs, which provide daily individual and commercial services to citizens through digital applications. Three hundred respondents completed the form. The findings revealed that participants appreciate and trust the electronic services provided via smart applications, particularly their ease of use and quality of information. Factors motivating their use include information disclosure strategy and interactivity. The UAE's increasing use of smart digital applications necessitates training, user-friendly designs, and integration with rather than replacement of traditional direct methods.

Trust evaluation of health websites by eliminating phishing websites and using similarity techniques

SummaryEvery user uses a search engine to find health information from websites. Content‐rich health websites are considered in our research as wrong information in these websites can threaten life. Search engines give a list of URLs related to their search keyword. Generally, the user follows the top websites displayed by the search engine. Newly constructed websites do not have ratings, hit counts, and reviews. The search engine does not display newly constructed websites in their top rank. In such a case, the newly constructed website with the same content as the website displayed at the top of the search engine loses the user's trust. Another problem is; the phishing website URLs are also displayed by the Google Search engine, which appear similar to the genuine websites. To solve the problem and enhance the trust of health websites which is not at the top of the search engine among users, we have proposed an approach that extracts all URLs based on the keyword. It identifies all legitimate URLs using a Machine Learning classifier. Address bar features, Domain name features, HTML, and JavaScript features were identified for the dataset of getting legitimate URLs. Three classifiers (Decision Tree, Random Forest, and Support Vector Machine) were trained and evaluated. Decision Tree has the highest training accuracy, 94.125, testing accuracy, 92.75, and precision score of 96.97. The cross‐validation score of all three models is almost 93. Therefore, Decision tree is used to identify legitimate websites. After getting the list of legitimate URLs, all the content of the legitimate website is extracted. A Semantic Similarity between top‐rank legitimate website content and legitimate websites is found using Natural language processing techniques. Then the websites are ranked based on similarity and the value of the trust is assigned from highly trustable to less trustable. We have compared and correlated our results with the Web of Trust, a reputation tool for trust analysis, and have achieved a positive correlation. Thus, our approach removes phishing websites and enhances the trust in other websites that are not at the top of the search engine.

The study of PGP web of trust based on social network analysis

The study of PGP web of trust based on social network analysis

Pengaruh kemajuan teknologi informasi terhadap perkembangan akuntansi

Technology that develops rapidly causes significant changes in the accounting field. These changes require accountants to continue to follow developments and improve their competence. Historically, the development of accounting has been divided into three eras, starting from the farming era and then the industrial era to the present, namely the information age. The more advanced information technology (IT), the more influence it will have on the accounting field. One of the effects of IT progress can be seen in the development of accounting information systems (AIS) in terms of processing data, internal control, and increasing the amount and quality of information in financial reporting. The development of computer-based AIS in producing financial reports also has an impact on the audit process. Although at first it gave the accounting profession a sense of worry, the development of IT in the end provided new opportunities for the accounting profession. The new opportunities that can be achieved include computer-based information system audits, computer-based information system consultants and web trust audits. Advances in IT brought significant changes to the development of accounting and also brought many benefits for both employees and companies.

Smart contract assisted blockchain based public key infrastructure system

ABSTRACTPublic key infrastructure (PKI) is a reliable solution for Internet communication. PKI finds applications in secure email, virtual private network (VPN), e‐commerce, e‐governance, and so on. It provides a secure mechanism to authenticate users and communications. The conventional PKI system is centralized, which exposes the infrastructure to many security issues. The digital certificate generation and validation processes in PKI suffer from high latency and inadequate authentication processes. Moreover, it needs enormous time and effort to mitigate the malfeasance of the certificate authority (CA). The complexity of employing the traditional key and certificate management increases by enforcing the centralized, which can compromise the transaction security. To overcome the aforementioned issues of PKI, three different solutions have been reported in the literature: Log based PKI (LBPKI), Web of Trust (WoT), and blockchain based PKI. The blockchain based PKI achieves more attention as it is the combination of LBPKI and WoT, which serves distributed trust, log of transactions, and constant sized data to verify the identity of users. Motivated by these facts, this article reports a blockchain‐based PKI system which has a lighter smart contract and less storage capacity and is also suitable for lightweight applications. The lighter smart contract in our infrastructure uses a, which validates the limit of one participating node for becoming theof any transaction inside the network. This approach can prevent distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks. This smart contract also checks the signer node address. The proposed smart contract can prevent seven cyber attacks, such as Denial of Service (DoS), Man in the Middle Attack (MITM), Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS), 51%, Injection attacks, Routing Attack, and Eclipse attack. The Delegated Proof of Stake (DPoS) consensus algorithm used in this model reduces the number of validators for each transaction which makes it suitable for lightweight applications. The timing complexity of key/certificate validation and signature/certificate revocation processes do not depend on the number of transactions. The comparisons of various timing parameters with existing solutions show that the proposed PKI is competitively better.

Research on patients' willingness to conduct online health consultation from the perspective of web trust model.

Background and aimsThe online health platform becomes an important choice for users to receive health services. While bringing convenience to users, it also provides lots of overloaded information for users and leads them to have trouble in making online medical choice decisions. In order to understand what types of information on the online health platform play key roles in the user's decision choice, this research explores the effects of cognition-based information, affect-based information and institution-based information on patients' willingness to conduct online health consultation from the perspective of Web Trust Model.MethodsResponses of 412 valid questionnaires were collected via online surveys.ResultsThe results showed that: (1) cognition-based information, affect-based information and institution-based information positively predict patients' willingness to conduct online health consultation; (2) online trust significantly mediates the relationship between online health platform information and willingness to conduct online health consultation; (3) health consciousness significantly moderates the mediating effect of online trust in the effect of online health platform information on patients' willingness to conduct online health consultation.ConclusionsThe findings make theoretical contributions by extending the Web Trust Model to the research field of online health service and offers practical implications for how to effectively provide information on the online health platform.

Transactions privacy on blockchain using web of trust concept

ABSTRACT Exchange of information through the web took place inside a trusted environment and thus user privacy was assured by default. Nowadays, ensuring user privacy is becoming one of the most desirable features of new technology, and Blockchain is not an exception. The Blockchain is a decentralized technology, open, and public platform where all transactions are stored and viewed from nodes, an approach known as “Web of Trust.” Although these transactions tend to be anonymous but in the case of the banking sector, user privacy requires special attention. In centralized systems, the implementation of privacy is no longer a challenge, using a hierarchical approach such as Public Key Infrastructure. This paper presents a broad landscape and state of art of user transaction privacy in Blockchain technology using the Web of Trust approach. Furthermore, we present a novel approach using the Public Key Infrastructure for assuring user privacy adding an optionally encrypted field in blocks in transactions. We have used Bithomp, as a free and open-source tool with the Testnet platform, and Ripple as the best known in the implementation of the payment system to implement the proposed approach. The paper concludes with the strengths and limitations of the proposed approach.

Why the Utilization of E-Government Services is Poor? – A study with the Citizens in Colombo Municipal Council Area in Sri Lanka

One of the most important elements of an e-Government system is the interaction between users and e-Government systems, specifically the adoption and utilization by those users, who are the main target of such systems. However, even after taken numerous efforts to develop an e-service system in Sri Lanka, its utilization and adoption are still at a very poor level. It indicates as the rate of online submission of applications is 1.16% and for license/ permits it is 0.18%. Thus, this research aims to investigate, analyze and understand the key factors that influence users’ adoption and utilization of two e-Government services: e-Vehicle revenue license and e-Police clearance certificate in Sri Lanka with a holistic approach. The conceptual framework was developed by studying the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM) and Web Trust models and theories related to technology acceptance and usage, in conjunction with a review of e-Government adoption and utilization literature. The study population was the Colombo Municipal Council area with 561,314 individuals. A random sample of 203 chief occupants was selected and the response rate was 96.5%. Respondents’ demographic details, educational qualifications, internet experience, e-Government usage and as well as preferences when obtaining e-Government services were included. The results showed significant (5% level) moderate positive relationships among utilization and “usefulness”, “ease of use”, “trust in the internet” and “trust in the Government”. Moreover, “usefulness” (β=0.445) and “trust of the government” (β=0.379) were found to be the significant (5% level) influential factors in adoption and utilization with model adequacy at 36.5%. Similar to the literature, the findings ensure that when the usefulness and the trust are at a higher level, the adoption and utilization also be at a higher level. The- challenges for citizen-centered e-Government applications were identified as a lack of users’ trust in the internet service providers, level of security standards, quality of e-Government systems, reluctance to share, exchange, and store their personal information specially the financial information in the online platform. However, the positive factor is the citizens perceive and experience e-Government systems as simple to use and useful. Further, they intend to accept and use it. Based on the interviews held with the uses, implementing simple and useful e-services and e-transactions, enhancing the reliability of the services, improving the accessibility options of the implemented e-services and e-transactions, and increasing the awareness of implemented e-services and their benefits were highlighted as their suggestions to develop the existing e-Government systems and services in Sri Lanka. The most important fact emphasized here is the implementation of a one-stop e-Government portal for all the services. Actions taken to enhance the digital literacy of the citizens from their school level will be benefited to successful adoption and utilization of e-services in Sri Lanka.

User Trust Inference in Online Social Networks: A Message Passing Perspective

Online social networks are vital environments for information sharing and user interactivity. To help users of online social services to build, expand, and maintain their friend networks or webs of trust, trust management systems have been deployed and trust inference (or more generally, friend recommendation) techniques have been studied in many online social networks. However, there are some challenging issues obstructing the real-world trust inference tasks. Using only explicit yet sparse trust relationships to predict user trust is inefficient in large online social networks. In the age of privacy-respecting Internet, certain types of user data may be unavailable, and thus existing models for trust inference may be less accurate or even defunct. Although some less interpretable models may achieve better performance in trust prediction, the interpretability of the models may prevent them from being adopted or improved for making relevant informed decisions. To tackle these problems, we propose a probabilistic graphical model for trust inference in online social networks in this paper. The proposed model is built upon the skeleton of explicit trust relationships (the web of trust) and embeds various types of available user data as comprehensively-designed trust-aware features. A message passing algorithm, loop belief propagation, is applied to the model inference, which greatly improves the interpretability of the proposed model. The performance of the proposed model is demonstrated by experiments on a real-world online social network dataset. Experimental results show the proposed model achieves acceptable accuracy with both fully and partially available data. Comparison experiments were conducted, and the results show the proposed model’s promise for trust inference in some circumstances.

Coordinate System-Based Trust-Aware Web Services Composition in Edge and Cloud Environment

Abstract In the next few years, the number of devices connected to the web will increase dramatically. This has encouraged the development of complexes and intelligent service-based applications using new paradigms and technologies such as edge computing and cloud computing. These applications are mainly built by the interaction between heterogonous web services. Answering end-users’ queries demands that these services collect, integrate and communicate sensitive data, which makes the vulnerability of data a serious issue. Thereby, this issue is a critical problem in the automatic services composition while users are frequently unquieted about the security and control of their sensitive data. To address this problem, our main idea is that avoiding disclosure of sensitive information can be ensured by selecting services where their mutual trust is high while preserving a good quality of service (QoS) as possible. A new Heuristic Trust-aware Web Services Composition Approach (CWS_SMA) is proposed. CWS_SMA aims to: (i) compute an optimal trust and QoS-aware web services composition based on the mathematical coordinate system, (ii) improve the composition response time based on a set of cooperative intelligent agents. Eventually, the simulations results show the effectiveness of the proposed solution.

The Effect of Web View and Prices on Buying Interest in E-Commerce Shopee with Trust as a Mediation Variable (Case Study on Shopee Users in Maros Regency)

This study examines and analyzes the effect of web display and price on buying interest in e-commerce Shope through trust as a mediating variable. The type of research used is explanatory research with survey methods and quantitative approaches and data collection using a questionnaire to 100 respondents to Shopee users in Maros Regency, South Sulawesi. The collected data was then analyzed using SmartPLS 3. The results showed that the price and trust web display positively and significantly affected buying interest. Web appearance and price have a positive and significant effect on trust. Then web appearance and price have a positive and significant effect on buying interest through trust as a mediating variable.

Factors affecting online purchase intention of consumers: a comparative approach between China and Uzbekistan

The purpose of this study was to examine factors that encourage purchase intentions of Chinese and Uzbekistan online consumers. Using comparative approach, three primary objectives were studied on exploring the relationship of subjective (individual demands and consumers' attitude) and objective (price, quality and website credibility) factors and online purchase intentions. This study showed differences between Chinese and Uzbek consumers regarding factors influencing their online purchase intentions and analyses the importance of online selling purchase intentions for further decision-making in the online trading field. Focus group interviews and a questionnaire survey carried out in Hangzhou, China, and Tashkent city, Uzbekistan. For Chinese consumers, the study revealed that the subjective factor was not relevant in affecting the Chinese consumers' online purchase intention and behaviour. The objective factors including price, product quality and web trust were found significant in affecting both Chinese and Uzbek consumers' online purchase intention.

Quantum web of trust

AbstractAuthentication is the foremost requirement for any online secure transaction. In post quantum era, public key encryption is considered no longer a safe option. The research is therefore, progressing toward providing a quantum resistant solution using both classical as well as quantum computing medium. The paper proposes a quantum based mutual authentication protocol for autonomous system, utilizing the properties of quantum mechanics for exchange, storage and validation of confidential data. The protocol so designed evolves into a chain of mutually trusted nodes to form quantum web of trust. The protocol cater for devices infected with malware by utilizing physically unclonable function inside trusted platform module. The mathematical expressions conveying the correctness of operations has been demonstrated on a quantum machine to verify the efficacy of the protocol. The security analysis demonstrates the ability of the proposed protocol to mitigate cyber attacks and eavesdropping in the network.