potential text for trust in RA

[Francis McCabe <frankmccabe@mac.com>]

1.1.1 Trust and Accountability
An important aspect of the relationship between participants in a  
social structure is the trust that they have in their interactions  
with each other. Trust arises in situations where one actor interacts  
with another actor with the objective of getting the latter to perform  
some task or achieve some goal on behalf of the former.

Goal Adoption

An actor may adopt a goal as a result of interacting with another actor.

A consequence of an actor adopting a goal on behalf of another actor  
is that the actor becomes accountable to the latter for the successful  
satisfaction of the goal.

Accountability

An actor is accountable to another actor when the former agrees to  
achieve a goal adopted from the latter.

It is important to note that the goal adopted by one actor as a result  
of an interaction need not be the same goal as that of the originating  
actor. In many situations, the adopted goal is not all the same and  
may even be contrary to the desires of the original actor.

For example, if an actor wishes to use a third party to securely  
transmit a message to an interaction partner, the actor needs the  
intermediary to adopt the goal of transmitting the message,  
potentially without even being aware of the actual goals involved.

The foundation for successful interaction of this form between actors  
is their mutual trust in each other – counter-balanced by the risks  
perceived.

Trust

Trust is an actor’s private perception of the commitment another actor  
has to a goal together with an identifiable set of real world effects  
associated with that goal.

Typically, it is not important to know how the real world effect may  
be realized, as the specific actions required may be private, but the  
trusting actor believes that these actions will be sufficient to  
result in the goal being satisfied.

Trust should not be confused with the simpler, more technical concept,  
of one participant trusting that their partner in an interaction is  
who they purport to be.

Evidence of Trust

Evidence of trust is the set of observable assertions that a  
stakeholder may use to measure trust.

Trust is based on evidence available to the trusting actor.  The  
evidence may be physical artifacts or a set of information from which  
the trusting actor can assess the degree of trust.  The evidence may  
include a history of previous interaction with the trusting actor or  
can be based on the public reputation reflecting the experience of  
others in dealing with the prospective actor.

Reputation

A social expression of the perception of trust.

Trust is not binary, i.e. an actor is neither completely trusted nor  
untrusted, because there is typically some degree of uncertainty in  
the accuracy or completeness of the evidence. Trust is based on the  
confidence the trusting actor has in the accuracy and sufficiency of  
the gathered evidence.

The degree of trust exists as a property of the trusting actor with  
respect to another actor or class of actors; the reputation of an  
actor or class of actors may predispose the trusting actor to a  
certain extent.

If the trusting actor is aware that actions by numerous other actors  
are required in order to realize certain real world effects, the  
collection of trust applicable to each step may be considered a chain  
of trust.

Chain of trust

A chain of trust is an extended set of trust relationships between  
actors in which one actor trusts another by virtue of the fact that  
there is one or more intermediaries that are, in turn, trusted by the  
original trusting actor and also trust the target actor.

Typically, chains of trust do not extend very far as the issues  
involved in perceiving the true intentions of actors are complex and  
inherently opaque.

Risk

Risk is an actor’s private perception that another actor’s actions  
will not lead to results that help achieve the first actor’s objectives.

smime.p7s