Stimulating cooperative behavior of autonomous devices - an analysis of requirements and existing approaches

In the context of mobile and wireless devices, an information
system is no longer a centralized component storing all the
relevant data nor is it a decentralized component governed by a
common authority. Rather, the information spread across huge
numbers of autonomous mobile and wireless devices owned by
independent organizations and individuals can be regarded as a
highly dynamic, virtual information system. For this vision to
become reality, the autonomous devices involved need to be
motivated to cooperate. This cooperation needs to occur not only
on the application layer, but, depending on the network
architecture, also on the lower layers from the link layer on
upwards. In this report, we investigate on which protocol layers
cooperation is needed and what constitutes uncooperative behavior.
We then identify necessary properties of incentive schemes that
encourage cooperation and discourage uncooperative behavior. In
this context, we examine remuneration types that are a major
constituent of incentive schemes. Finally, using the example of
ad hoc networks, the most challenging technical basis of a
wireless information system, we compare existing incentive
... mehrschemes to these characteristics.