Making Trust Explicit in Distributed Commerce Transactions

In a distributed environment where nodes are independently motivated, many transactions or commercial exchanges may be stymied due to a lack of trust between the participants. The addition of trusted intermediaries may facilitate some exchanges, but others are still problematic. We introduce a language for specifying these commercial exchange problems, and sequencing graphs, a formalism for determining whether a given exchange may occur. We also present an algorithm for generating a feasible execution sequence of pairwise exchanges between parties (when it exists). Indemnities may be offered to facilitate previously infeasible transactions. We show when and how they enable commercial transactions. 1 Introduction Electronic commerce is a rapidly expanding field, with vast computer networks bringing together many potential customers and producers, increasing the number and range of contacts, and increasing the likelihood of matching producers and consumers. For example, consumers may fi..