Abstract
M.Sc.
Social networks are evolving as mobile devices are able to establish direct communication with each other. The success of social networking sites such as FaceBook is prompting mobile phone vendors and operators to focus on providing a real human experience, as the presence of others who are in close proximity can be detected, enabling the formation of real as opposed to virtual friendships.
Mobile devices are considered to be the next logical step in social networking, as they become more pervasive. Mobile social networking is a new movement in social networking, as people have membership of both a virtual community through an online social network environment, and a physical community where they are located. This research has the aim of extending the social networking experience between the virtual and physical worlds, to allow people to form real relationships with each other by using concepts from the virtual world. A move in mobile social networking is the decentralised exploration of friendships.
Short-range wireless protocols like Bluetooth enable collaborative applications between mobile devices of users. Unlike conventional centralised social networks that rely upon a central authority to organise the opinions of each member of the social network and protect their personal information, members of a decentralised network are completely autonomous and responsible for their own individual behaviour. When people meet for the first time, they thus need help to determine if they can trust each other.
The dissertation presents BlueTrust, a trust model for use in decentralised mobile social networks. The BlueFOAF prototype application demonstrates the operation of the BlueTrust mechanism. This application investigates the underlying technologies researched, as well as the implementation of BlueTrust to determine how others who are in close proximity can be trusted. It focuses on establishing trust between users by computing trust levels to support face-to-face user interaction.