Economics of intelligent selection of wireless access networks in a market-based framework : a game-theoretic approach

The Digital Marketplace is a market-based framework where network operators offer communications services with competition at the call level. It strives to address a tussle between the actors involved in a heterogeneous wireless access network. However, as with any market-like institution, it is vital to analyze the Digital Marketplace from the strategic perspective to ensure that all shortcomings are removed prior to implementation. In this paper, we analyze the selling mechanism proposed in the Digital Marketplace. The mechanism is based on a procurement first-price sealed-bid auction where the network operators represent the sellers/bidders, and the end-user of a wireless service is the buyer. However, this auction format is somewhat unusual as the winning bid is a composition of both the network operator’s monetary bid and their reputation rating. We create a simple economic model of the auction, and we show that it is mathematically intractable to derive the equilibrium bidding behavior when there are N network operators, and we make only generic assumptions about the structure of the bidding strategies. We then move on to consider a scenario with only two network operators, and assume that network operators use bidding strategies which are linear functions of their costs. This results in the derivation of the equilibrium bidding behavior in that scenario

A Game Theoretic Analysis of Incentives in Content Production and Sharing over Peer-to-Peer Networks

User-generated content can be distributed at a low cost using peer-to-peer (P2P) networks, but the free-rider problem hinders the utilization of P2P networks. In order to achieve an efficient use of P2P networks, we investigate fundamental issues on incentives in content production and sharing using game theory. We build a basic model to analyze non-cooperative outcomes without an incentive scheme and then use different game formulations derived from the basic model to examine five incentive schemes: cooperative, payment, repeated interaction, intervention, and enforced full sharing. The results of this paper show that 1) cooperative peers share all produced content while non-cooperative peers do not share at all without an incentive scheme; 2) a cooperative scheme allows peers to consume more content than non-cooperative outcomes do; 3) a cooperative outcome can be achieved among non-cooperative peers by introducing an incentive scheme based on payment, repeated interaction, or intervention; and 4) enforced full sharing has ambiguous welfare effects on peers. In addition to describing the solutions of different formulations, we discuss enforcement and informational requirements to implement each solution, aiming to offer a guideline for protocol designers when designing incentive schemes for P2P networks.Comment: 31 pages, 3 figures, 1 tabl

TRIDEnT: Building Decentralized Incentives for Collaborative Security

Sophisticated mass attacks, especially when exploiting zero-day vulnerabilities, have the potential to cause destructive damage to organizations and critical infrastructure. To timely detect and contain such attacks, collaboration among the defenders is critical. By correlating real-time detection information (alerts) from multiple sources (collaborative intrusion detection), defenders can detect attacks and take the appropriate defensive measures in time. However, although the technical tools to facilitate collaboration exist, real-world adoption of such collaborative security mechanisms is still underwhelming. This is largely due to a lack of trust and participation incentives for companies and organizations. This paper proposes TRIDEnT, a novel collaborative platform that aims to enable and incentivize parties to exchange network alert data, thus increasing their overall detection capabilities. TRIDEnT allows parties that may be in a competitive relationship, to selectively advertise, sell and acquire security alerts in the form of (near) real-time peer-to-peer streams. To validate the basic principles behind TRIDEnT, we present an intuitive game-theoretic model of alert sharing, that is of independent interest, and show that collaboration is bound to take place infinitely often. Furthermore, to demonstrate the feasibility of our approach, we instantiate our design in a decentralized manner using Ethereum smart contracts and provide a fully functional prototype.Comment: 28 page