Propagating Trust In The Web Services Framework

In this paper, we discuss one possible way of establishing trust between a user entity and a web service. We will assume that the user entity is machine-based (i.e. some software, a mobile agent or even perhaps a web service). After a brief introduction, we will consider the concept of Trust and the Web Services framework in two separate sections. In the case of Trust, we will show that two aspects are important: on the one hand it is possible to quantify trust in order to establish a trust relationship, and on the other hand we stress the relevance of the context for which you wish to establish the trust relationship. One possible context includes security. In the case of the Web Services framework, we will show that a web service can have an extremely complex structure, which complicates the propagation of trust. The paper will conclude with a description of one possible model, which could be used to establish a trust relationship between a user entity and a complex web service. The model makes use of the underlying XML structure of Web services. It allows the user to specify parameters, which reflects the trust context as well as the users’ interpretation of the various aspects of a trust relationship.