The Metaphysics of Software Trust

by Keith W. Miller and Jeffrey Voas

The published examination of trust and computing goes back to at least 1981, and many contemporary researchers of trusted computing cite a 1983 US Department of Defense document as an early influential paper about the idea. However, the term trusted computing now has a specialized meaning that deals with standards for hardware and software combinations that must meet certain security criteria established by the Trusted Computing Group. In this article, we take a more abstract view of trust—specifically, we don't discuss the Trusted Computing Group's security criteria. We also focus (perhaps arbitrarily) on software, so we use the phrase software trust instead of trusted computing throughout the text.

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This month's theme: TRUST MANAGEMENT

About this month's theme:
In recent years, trust in computing has been receiving increased attention. With the emphasis on loosely coupled and decentralized systems and the advent of service orientation, trust management has moved beyond the domains of security, multiagent systems, and e-commerce to become a key concern across all aspects of computing. Read more ►

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The Metaphysics of Software Trust

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