Accountability in Dynamic Networks
Xavier Vila\c{c}a, Lu\'is Rodrigues

TL;DR
This paper develops a game theoretical model to analyze accountability enforcement in dynamic networks, identifying conditions like timely punishments and sufficient information that ensure rational agents exchange messages reliably.
Contribution
It introduces a new model for repeated interactions in dynamic networks with incomplete information, a novel solution concept, and characterizes conditions for enforcing accountability.
Findings
Timely punishments are essential for accountability enforcement.
Accountability can be enforced in networks with 1-connectivity and minimal topology knowledge.
In some networks like file-sharing, accountability enforcement is impossible without timely punishments.
Abstract
We take a game theoretical approach to determine necessary and sufficient conditions under which we can persuade rational agents to exchange messages in pairwise exchanges over links of a dynamic network, by holding them accountable for deviations with punishments. We make three contributions: (1) we provide a new game theoretical model of repeated interactions in dynamic networks, where agents have incomplete information of the topology, (2) we define a new solution concept for this model, and (3) we identify necessary and sufficient conditions for enforcing accountability, i.e., for persuading agents to exchange messages in the aforementioned model. Our results are of technical interest but also of practical relevance. We show that we cannot enforce accountability if the dynamic network does not allow for \emph{timely punishments}. In practice, this means for instance that we cannot…
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Taxonomy
TopicsPeer-to-Peer Network Technologies · Game Theory and Applications · Opinion Dynamics and Social Influence
