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Informant: Detecting Sybils Using Incentives

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Financial Cryptography and Data Security (FC 2007)

Part of the book series: Lecture Notes in Computer Science ((LNSC,volume 4886))

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Abstract

We propose an economic approach to Sybil attack detection. In our Informant protocol, a detective offers a reward for Sybils to reveal themselves. The detective accepts from one identity a security deposit and the name of target peer; the deposit and a reward are given to the target. We prove the optimal strategy for the informant is to play the game if and only if she is Sybil with a low opportunity cost, and the target will cooperate if and only if she is identical to the informant. Informant uses a Dutch auction to find the minimum possible reward that will reveal a Sybil attacker. Because our approach is economic, it is not limited to a specific application and does not rely on a physical device or token.

This paper was supported in part by National Science Foundation award NSF-0133055.

The original version of this chapter was revised: The copyright line was incorrect. This has been corrected. The Erratum to this chapter is available at DOI: 10.1007/978-3-540-77366-5_37

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Science, Univ. of Massachusetts, Amherst, MA, USA

    N. Boris Margolin & Brian N. Levine

Authors
  1. N. Boris Margolin
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  2. Brian N. Levine
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Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. Software Engineering Institute, Carnegie Mellon University, 4500 Fifth Avenue, 15213, Pittsburgh, PA, USA

    Sven Dietrich

  2. CRCS DEAS, Harvard University, Maxwell Dworkin 110, 33 Oxford Street, 02138, Cambridge, MA, USA

    Rachna Dhamija

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Margolin, N.B., Levine, B.N. (2007). Informant: Detecting Sybils Using Incentives. In: Dietrich, S., Dhamija, R. (eds) Financial Cryptography and Data Security. FC 2007. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, vol 4886. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77366-5_18

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-77366-5_18

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-540-77365-8

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-540-77366-5

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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